Agricultural land for urban development: The process of land conversion in Central Vietnam Nguyen Quang Phuc a, * , A.C.M. van Westen b , Annelies Zoomers b a Hue University, Vietnam b Dept. of Human Geography and Planning, Utrecht University, The Netherlands Keywords: Land conversion Stakeholders Compensation Participation Vietnam abstract Since the 1990s, Vietnam’s progressive integration into the global market economy has triggered major economic and social transformations. In spatial terms, these are marked by a massive conversion of agricultural land for industrial and urban development. While this process has attracted considerable attention from media and researchers, much of the research on land conversion has focused on the largest cities. Little attention is devoted to similar processes occurring in medium-sized cities where urban expansion has been rapidly increasing in recent years. In order to identify the issues and conse- quences, this paper attempts to analyze how the conversion of farmland for urban uses takes place in the medium-sized city of Hue in Central Vietnam. The analysis shows that land conversion for urban development purposes has increased social tensions and complaints from affected people. Two key is- sues are identified: i) the state uses its extensive powers in the decision-making process while the participation of affected people is passive and weak; ii) land conversion from agricultural to urban uses results from profit-seeking by multiple stakeholders. Data was collected through fieldwork in Hue and secondary sources such as newspapers, legal documents on land policy and urban development. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Land conversion is widely defined as a process characterized by the transference of land from one type of use and user to another. In most cases, as in this paper, conversion involves transforming agricultural land for urban uses (Azadi, Ho, & Hasfiati, 2011). This is a worldwide phenomenon (Firman, 1997) that is seen as inevitable during periods of economic development and population growth (Tan, Beckmann, Berg, & Qu, 2009). In many parts of the world, governments have devised policies to facilitate the acquisition of scarce land for such purposes in order to achieve socio-economic goals. This process, however, is implemented in different ways in different countries. Differences in land tenure regimes lead to different conversion processes; land rights determine the methods of purchase and sale and also affect the distribution of benefits produced by land conversion (Tan et al., 2009). For example, in the Netherlands and Germany, farmland is often privately owned and compensation prices are thus set according to market prices. Pri- vate land ownership in these European countries therefore offers established rights holders’ considerable protection. Conversely, in countries without private land ownership, land conversion is dominated by the government. Vietnam is a socialist country where ‘all land belongs to the state’ (Land Law, 2003). Currently the country experiences rapid social and economic development based on a strategy of increasingly inte- grating into the globalized world economy. A logical corollary of this development process is a rising demand for suitable land for urban and industrial growth (Phuong, 2009). In order to accommodate that demand, the government uses the mechanism of land conver- sion for ‘public purposes’ to open up massive expanses of agricul- tural land in rural and peri-urban areas. In fact, it is estimated that nearly 1 million hectares of farmland was converted to non- agricultural uses between 2001 and 2010 (World Bank, 2011). The question now arises whether public sector ownership and man- agement of land leads to more equitable outcomes than market- driven conversion processes. In principle, state control over land could safeguard weak stakeholders from being crowded-out by market forces. On the other hand, we also know that land conversion has caused social tensions, attracting considerable attention from the media and researchers. Thus it is important to ask: to what extent do state-based land governance systems actually differ? Much of the research on land conversion in Vietnam is concentrated in mega-cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ84 54 3529139; fax: þ84 54 3529491. E-mail addresses: phuchce@gmail.com (N.Q. Phuc), A.C.M.vanWesten@uu.nl (A.C.M. Westen), E.B.Zoomers@uu.nl (A. Zoomers). Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Habitat International journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/habitatint 0197-3975/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2013.06.004 Habitat International 41 (2014) 1e7