Sprawl offensive in Vietnam

The US military may retreated from Vietnam in 1973, but nearly 40 years later American-style sprawl seems to have taken over, reports Michael Mehaffy in Urban Land. The southeast Asian country is growing rapidly, and many of the new developments feature wide new roads with suburban-pattern development — some including the "towers in the park" first proposed by modernist architect Le Corbusier. Mehaffy reports on the efforts of planner Ngoc Nguyen, who teaches at Da Nang University, to promote more sustainable ideas based on new urban principles and Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language. "We are still a young economy, and we have a chance to show we can do better," he says.