Bargaining with Disaster: Flooding, Climate Change, and Urban Growth Ambitions in Quy Nhon, Vietnam

• Published in: Pacific affairs Vol. 88; no. 3; pp. 577 - 597
• Main Author: DiGregorio, Michael
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Vancouver Pacific Affairs, a division of the University of British 01.09.2015; University of British Columbia; The University of British Columbia - Pacific Affairs; Pacific Affairs. The University of British Columbia
• Subjects: Bargaining; Case studies; Cities; City planning; Climate Change; Climatic changes; Collaboration; Disasters; Economic development; Emergency communications systems; Emergency preparedness; Ethnography; Flood damage prevention; Floodplains; Floods; Incentives; Infrastructure; Metropolitan areas; Municipal governments; Natural resources; Planning; Political activism; Political Economy; Politics; Rural areas; Rural development; Rural-urban fringe areas; Typhoons; Urban areas; Urban development; Urbanization; Vietnam; Vietnam
• ISSN: 0030-851X; 0030-851X; 1715-3379
• DOI: 10.5509/2015883577

This article uses a problem-driven political economy approach to analyze the city of Quy Nhon's ongoing attempts to pursue long-standing urban growth ambitions in the face of increasing awareness of climate threats. In spite of a recent history of multiple, catastrophic floods, the provincial Department of Construction (DOC) has proposed expanding the city's boundaries into low-lying agricultural areas nearby. Based on past experience and projections of future climate change impacts, environmentalists in the provincial administration have opposed this move. Fuelling this conflict are incentives within Vietnam's urban development and management system. Rather than respond to urban growth, these incentives are used to lead it. Thus, while climate vulnerability assessments have alerted city and provincial officials to potential dangers in their urban development strategy, incentives within the political-administrative system continue to pull them along a growth pathway that is likely to increase their vulnerability to climate change. Monumental public works and citywide early warning systems mask increasing risks embedded in these urban growth priorities rather than resolve them. Getting the incentives right, therefore, becomes the key to improving resilience to climate change.