The Other Half of Hà Nội, The Life Beyond The Ceramic Wall 

Anyone who has visited Hà Nội may remember a particular wall. While it is not remarkable in the historical sense of the Berlin Wall, this structure is covered in ceramic mosaics that stretch nearly 4 kilometers along a road near the Sông Hồng (Red River), from Trần Khánh Dư street to Nghi Tàm road.

Running beneath Long Biên Bridge, the wall was decorated for the 1,000th anniversary of Thăng Long–Hà Nội in 2010, earning a Guinness World Record that year for the world’s longest ceramic mosaic. [1] Before this transformation, the stretch had been an earthen dike, rebuilt between 1998 and 2000 as a concrete wall to protect against flooding while making more room for traffic. [2]

From the city side, passersby might pause to admire the colorful artwork, but the mosaics cannot hide everything. Above the wall, rooftops rise to different heights: spacious villas, tall, narrow townhouses, aging homes, and makeshift sheet-metal shelters in the riverside slums. 

Step beyond this decorated barrier, and the other side of the glittering capital comes into view.

A Very Different Side

Beyond the broad Ceramic Mosaic Road, narrow streets funnel into even narrower alleys, where houses pack together so tightly that even navigation requires careful maneuvering. Push through, however, and these cramped pathways eventually open onto the banks of the Sông Hồng.

This area houses the dense community of Hồng Hà Ward. [3] Following its establishment in 2025, official figures placed the ward’s population at 123,282. Residents here sustain themselves through varied means: some run storefronts out of their homes, others commute to city offices, and many scrape together a living directly on the streets.

Each night, Long Biên Market demands grueling labor from those strong enough to haul goods. Just behind the market sits a cluster of sheet-metal rental rooms, widely described as a slum, which houses this workforce. 

According to one tenant, the landlord purchased the plot when land was cheap and gradually expanded the structures. Today, it shelters porters, day laborers taking odd jobs, and those who lack identity documents.

Travel from Long Biên toward Tứ Liên and Nhật Tân, and this hidden half of the capital takes on an entirely different appearance. [4] 

These villages are famous for cultivating ornamental kumquat trees and peach blossoms. Taking advantage of the fertile alluvial soil along the river, growers tend their trees year-round to time the blooms and fruit perfectly for Tết, the Lunar New Year. 

In 2026, local authorities noted that this traditional agricultural zone still covered approximately 30 hectares and supported nearly 450 households.

Closer to the river, the dense housing falls away, replaced by sprawling gardens, floodplains, and open water. The air cools, the horizon widens, and it suddenly feels as though the city has been left completely behind—even though central Hà Nội remains just on the other side of the wall.

A visitor wandering these spaces might wonder how come so many people choose to live on the vulnerable land outside the city’s protective dike. The villages themselves have existed for generations, sustaining traditional trades. 

However, a 2015 study by Sylvie Fanchette and colleagues noted that migrants and poorer residents began settling here in the 1970s, drawn by land rendered cheap due to frequent flooding. [5] It was only after the Hòa Bình hydropower dam was completed in 1994, which regulated river flows and mitigated flood risks, that the area began attracting wealthier residents as well.

The deeper one goes into this enclave, the more extreme the contrasts become. A spacious villa might stand just dozens of meters away from makeshift rental rooms. Legitimate homeowners, undocumented residents, tenants, and the impoverished all share this precarious strip of land between the dike and the river.

For years, this community has found ways to coexist and grow. Now, the city wants to take back the land beneath their homes.

Leaving One Half Behind

In September 2026, Hà Nội began seeking public comment on a comprehensive revision of its Sông Hồng urban zoning plan, drawn at a scale of 1:5,000. [6] While maps displaying boundaries, roads, and color-coded parcels were set up at five consultation sites across Hồng Hà Ward, few residents seemed interested in the technical details. Instead, conversations with locals repeatedly circled back to their homes: Is my house inside the project area? How much compensation will I get? Where will my family go?

The prospect of relocation has led to vastly different reactions. Outside one roadside house, a family whose owner was washing a Porsche expressed reluctance to leave. “Normally, we might not sell this house, not even for 100 billion đồng ($3.85 million USD). Now, who knows whether anyone would buy it for 20 or 30 billion,” one member said. Though the figure was a personal valuation rather than an official offer, it reflected their anxiety over what they stood to lose.

Conversely, a family selling food in the middle of Hồng Hà Ward is looking forward to the project. Despite lacking a land-use rights certificate, they believe their decades of residence will guarantee a substantial payout. 

“We don’t have a certificate. We’ve been paying land tax here for 55 years,” the homeowner stated firmly. His optimism may stem from the city’s announcement that compensation would be double the prescribed rate for land meeting legal requirements. [7]

Yet, even those hoping for compensation admitted they would struggle to purchase a comparable home, anticipating a forced move further from the city center.

The situation is far more precarious behind Long Biên Market, where residents have no property to value and no land to leverage for compensation. 

A man selling drinks in the rental settlement dismissed the zoning plan entirely. “It’s mainly the landlord’s land. We’re just renting. If we don’t live here, we’ll live somewhere else. What does it matter?”

A resident since 1990, he once worked the market before his legs became paralyzed. Now, he sells tea to neighbors while his wife stays home to care for him during the day and collects scrap paper at night. The couple rents a room for 1.2 million đồng a month, excluding utilities, and neither possesses an identity card.

Though they own nothing for the authorities to acquire, the project still threatens their fragile livelihood. Finding a new place to sell drinks will be difficult, and if Long Biên Market is also relocated, the husband admits that he does not know how they will survive. 

“I don’t know where else to turn to make a living,” he said.

Decades in the slum have already tested their endurance. During a severe flood that submerged their room to the roof, the wife carried her paralyzed husband on her back to the foot of Long Biên Bridge, where they sheltered beneath tarpaulins.

Going back to her hometown is no longer possible. “I can’t go to my hometown. With him like this, I don’t dare to do so,” she said. “It’s been so long since I went back. How could I leave him like this?”

Welcoming a New Half

Under the current proposal, Hà Nội intends to transform from a city with its “back to the river” into one that “faces the river.” [8] The revised plan envisions the stretch between the Thăng Long and Thanh Trì bridges as an “urban living room,” complete with centers for finance, commerce, services, and innovation. While buildings will generally rise 30 to 45 stories, a 109-story Kỷ Nguyên tower is proposed as the primary landmark.

About 280,000 people live within this planning area, but the revised plan projects a population between 800,000 and 1.2 million. [9] The plan divides existing neighborhoods into zones for relocation, redevelopment, or selective upgrading—meaning not everyone outside the dike must leave. However, communities located in the path of new roads, flood-prone areas, or the proposed “urban living room” would be considered for relocation and redevelopment.

Information released by Hà Nội in May 2026 estimates the preliminary investment for the Sông Hồng Landscape Boulevard project at nearly 737 trillion đồng. [10] To fund the project, approximately 2,655.8 hectares of land are earmarked as payment, encompassing both urban development plots within the project boundaries and other city land.

New residents will eventually move into the new urban developments, and many current inhabitants are hoping a place will remain for them in the rebuilt city. During public consultations, numerous residents asked to stay in their existing neighborhoods to preserve their livelihoods and traditional ways of life. [11] The city has responded with a principle of prioritizing residents’ current locations and community ties, promising that new living conditions will be at least as good as before.

However, Hồng Hà is one of five communes and wards completely lacking land for resettlement inside the dike. [12] As a result, its residents face relocation to farther destinations, including Thư Lâm–Đông Anh, Lĩnh Nam, Bồ Đề–Long Biên, and the Long Biên–Bồ Đề settlement area.

For homeowners, the project means navigating resettlement compensation, finding a new home, and potentially establishing a new livelihood. But for the couple renting behind Long Biên Market, public documents offer no answers regarding where they will live, what work they will do, or if they will receive any assistance.

The wife has imagined a scenario for them on her own. If the project eventually displaces them, she said, she will carry her husband on her back to live beneath the bridge. Perhaps, she added half-jokingly, Tô Lâm will take pity upon seeing them and provide them a room.

For years, Hà Nội has turned its back to the river, hiding a very different world behind its protective wall. From the city center, residents see bright ceramic mosaics long before they notice the unvarnished lives beyond them.

Now that Hà Nội is determined to face the river, the landscape may soon feature parks, high-rises, and a completely replaced community, with original residents pushed far to the periphery. The ceramic wall that once beautified the boundary between the city’s two halves may become a barrier itself, obscuring the very “other half” Hà Nội claims it wants to see.

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Thu Chi Vũ wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on September 22, 2026. The Vietnamese Magazine owns the copyright for this English translation.