Motorbike Madness in Vietnam
Ever tried to cross the road in Hanoi? There’s no point in waiting for a gap. Close your eyes and start walking: the traffic will magically weave around you. While Vietnamese cities were once dominated by bicycles and pedestrians, the growth in motorized mobility over the past decades have been astounding. The speed with which Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have changed into hostile environments for pedestrians and cyclist is quite remarkable. Yet in mobility terms Vietnamese urban transport somehow works, largely thanks to the continuing dominance of motorbikes. In this episode, Hue-Tam Jamme and Arve Hansen discuss motorbike madness in Vietnam, and what we can learn from the combination of vibrant street life and relatively efficient transport of millions of people on two wheels.
Hue-Tam Jamme is an assistant professor at Arizona Sate University. She studies urbanisms in transition from a comparative perspective, using a range of qualitative and quantitative methods, focusing on the lived experience of societal transformations
Arve Hansen is a researcher at the Centre for Development and the Environment at the University of Oslo.
