Since the initiation of Vietnam’s Doi Moi policy in 1986, the rate of urbanization has rapidly increased with a great influx of immigrants from rural areas. With such migration becoming a large acceleration factor for urban growth, the shortage of housing has become a critical problem in the cities. The Vietnamese government encouraged self-built housing and public–private partnerships to produce different types of housing stock. There are few available academic studies about housing choice in Vietnam to help understand movement dynamics and to foster sustainable housing development. The purpose of this study is to analyze housing choice and moving determinants in Ho Chi Minh City, and thereby establish recommendations for sustainable housing development in Vietnam. For an empirical study, a citizen questionnaire survey was conducted in HCMC and an in-depth analysis was carried out. The results indicate that the row house type for single-family housing is strongly preferred, but a preference for apartments is also observed for future planning. The factors influencing housing choice and movement are family income, housing ownership, housing typology, and commuting environment. These phenomena suggest that the government should prudently consider affordable housing development in many districts. The results of this study will help to establish policies for sustainable housing development in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Since the Doi Moi policy of economic reform in 1986, Vietnam has experienced economic development and housing market growth with increasing foreign direct investment. While high-end apartment development has dominated since the emergence of the privatized housing market, more recent focus is on the affordable apartment segment with the remarkable surge of middle-income households in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). While most previous studies have analyzed housing price determinants based on locational classification, this study is based on the affordability framework of the housing market in HCMC. It aims to investigate the price determinants of affordable and unaffordable apartment units using the hedonic regression model. The study identified common factors between the two types of apartments, such as vertical shared access and proximity to downtown, as well as unique factors for each, such as more high-rise towers, foreign development, proximity to main roads, and shopping malls only for the affordable segments. The findings have valuable implications, not only for future investors and developers in setting up successful housing development strategies, but also for the public sector in strongly encouraging public–private partnerships for sustainable housing development in Vietnam.

Since the introduction of the Doi Moi economic reform in 1986, the real estate market in Vietnam has witnessed a sharp increase in foreign investment inflows and a remarkable growth in the housing market, particularly for high-rise apartments in large cities. This study investigates the determinants of apartment prices in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) and Hanoi, the two most representative cities in Vietnam. The spatial distribution of apartments and their price determinants were addressed by the spatial analysis of Geographic Information System (GIS) and the hedonic model. The price determinants of both cities were closely associated with downtown-related factors; moreover, the externalities of urbanization affected each city. While HCMC was more related to the locational attributes of urban amenities and community density as well as programs because of unmanaged urbanization, Hanoi was more related to housing attributes, since the majority of apartment projects were developed under urban infrastructure development supported by the central government. Apartment cluster maps of each city clearly show the contrast of housing distribution. Our findings clarify the impact of government policies on housing price determinants and can be a reference for private- and public-sector stakeholders seeking to undertake economically and socially sustainable housing development projects in Vietnam.

The tourism sector plays a critical role in driving economic development. Within this domain, transportation systems are of paramount importance, facilitating connectivity between tourist attractions and shaping destination preferences. Consequently, the optimization of an efficient and integrated transportation infrastructure has the potential to substantially enhance tourism growth. This study seeks to examine the potential for strengthening the public transportation network to support and promote tourism development in Bangkok. Employing physical analysis tools that incorporate considerations of density, centrality, and accessibility within the public transportation network and its intersection with tourist attractions, geographic information systems are deployed. These systems facilitate the examination of spatial information pertaining to diverse facets of the public transportation system, employing methodologies such as kernel density estimation and network analysis, subsequently subject to statistical significance testing. The analysis unveils that locales characterized by a heightened concentration of tourist attractions occupy a central role within the public transport system, owing to their proximity to various transportation modalities, encompassing water and bus transport. However, in light of the dispersed distribution of tourist attractions across varied areas, the overall centrality of the public transport system emerges as suboptimal. This poses a substantive challenge in advancing alternative transportation systems tailored for tourism. Consequently, in regions distanced from economic hubs, vehicular reliance persists as predominant across multiple travel modes. Mitigating this challenge assumes paramount importance in fostering sustainable tourism development.

With fast-growing aviation markets, many developing countries are showing remarkable economic development in global terms. As significant growth of air transportation is crucially interrelated with regional growth, it is essential to identify relevant criteria to ensure effective allocation of investments in this regard. This study aimed to investigate airport centrality using social network analysis to detect the key hubs and examine the interrelationship between airport centrality and regional economy indicators in Vietnamese regions. The results revealed that the cities of Tan Son Nhat, Noi Bai, and Da Nang were the key regional hub airports in the air transport network and the development of these leading cities had played a significant role in promoting the improvement of the entire domestic air network. Moreover, the results showed a strong positive correlation between airport centrality and regional growth features. Therefore, policymakers can optimize their decision-making processes in relation to sustainable regional development by considering air transport mobility and network in addition to conventional socioeconomic criteria.

Innovation City projects, aimed at balanced national development in South Korea, have relocated public institutions from the Seoul metropolitan area to provinces, decentralizing population and economic functions, over the past decade. This study measured changes in regional centrality (the central and local location or hierarchy of objects in a network) at the 14 cities where Innovation City projects were constructed. Commuter Origin-Destination data were analyzed using Rstudio. In the case of connectivity centrality, 13 out of 14 regions saw a rise in centrality values; among them, Busan, Daegu, and Ulsan belong to large cities. This suggests that the impact of Innovation City projects on established metropolitan areas may not be very significant. Five of the 14 projects increased the value of eigenvector centrality, while 10 increased the centrality ranking. This means that the absolute traffic volume of Innovation Cities across the country had increased, while the centrality of areas around these cities declined, suggesting that Innovation Cities should pursue co-prosperity with surrounding areas. In this way, Innovation Cities can have a positive impact on surrounding areas, and positive externalities of relocation projects are maximized. However, such development effects are confined to Innovation City areas, negatively influencing balanced regional development.