Urban Green Areas – their functions under a changing lifestyle of ...

Such a master plan has to clarify the general management structure. Parks and gardens are
public spaces. So it is the responsibility of Hanoi’s government to manage these. The
question of whether a public administration works better than a private company, to which
the government hands over the responsibility, or not is a question of principle. Discussion
and experiences worldwide are ambiguous – each country has to find its own solution and
make its own decisions. With regard to the current situation, to have a chance to stop
corruption (mid-term) and to make cooperation and coordination between the single parks
easier, the clear recommendation for Vietnam is
R-4: Keep UGA management in the responsibility of public bodies.
Furthermore, changes in society with the effect of growing consciousness and selfconfidence
of local people, and the experiences from cities in developed countries, would
force public planning to change its planning processes. Thus:
R-5: Ensure participation of affected population in the process of planning and
management (as already written in planning guidelines).
Although the level of conflicts among user groups seems not actually to be urgent when
compared with the situation in developed countries, these well-known conflicts have
already occured on a low level. Therefore, precautions should be made now to avoid larger
problems in the future.
R-6: Be aware of potential conflicts among user groups.
Some exemplary ideas to solve current problems are:
The motorbike problem can be prevented by moving all park offices to near the gates.
Hence, the staff working there can reach their working place conveniently without
disturbing park users. Maintenance workers, other service providers inside the parks as
well as park users must strictly follow the rule “no driving in parks”. To implement this
rule, people must improve their consciousness, and park wardens should work more
effectively.
Conflicts from physical exercise groups:
o Conflicts among different groups in term of using areas: Trainers should book places
in advance with park managers. Then the park managers should organize suitable
sites for each group so that disturbances caused by one group to the others will be
reduced. In this way, optimized locations for each group can also help to avoid
destroying grass by heavy equipment and overwhelming by a very large number of
park users later on.
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