Land saigon

A group of migrants from the southwest of Saigon live on a piece of vacant land in Phong Phu Commune, Binh Chanh District. They have been hanging on to the fringe of urban life for over a decade in shacks without electricity or clean water. They make a living from growing vegetables such as cucumbers, gourds and bitter melons. “It started with just a few people but now we have around 20 families. We have no land to work back home,” said Nguyen Thi Ba, 74, from Can Tho. A company that owns the land rents it out to the migrants. Vo Thi Mai, 51, from Can Tho, said she works from dawn to dusk and sells her crops at a wholesale market every two months. A pit lined with canvas is used to collect rainwater for washing and showers. People here have to buy bottled water to drink and cook with. This 23-year-old woman and her 34-year-old husband from Can Tho take a shower in a pond as there's no tap water. … [Read more...] about In Saigon’s backyard, migrants eke out a living on the edge of civilization

The one-meter wide, seven-and-a-half-meter long space in an alley on Vinh Vien Street is home to Nguyen Van Ton, 82, his wife Trinh Thy Y, 74, their daughter, 53, and her grandchild, 12. The house was built 50 years ago when Ton came to Saigon from the Mekong Delta's Long An Province to work as a construction worker. He built the place himself, squeezing three floors and a mezzanine in between the walls of the two neighboring houses. "Even though the house is small, with the help of the ward's committee, I was issued a land use right certificate, a house number, along with electricity and water meters," Ton said. Y has retired as a nurse at a public hospital. She has lived with Ton in the house throughout their married life. "We cannot afford a bigger house. It did not bother us much in the past because we went out to work all day and only came home to sleep." In order to watch the TV, Ton has to stand near the box since there is no space to sit. It does not … [Read more...] about Living between two neighboring walls in Saigon

The average selling price of a street-view house in HCMC’s District 1 was VND490 million ($21,124) per square meter in Q3, according to a report by real estate trading site Batdongsan.com.vn. This was 56 percent higher than the average price in neighboring District 3 and 87 percent higher than in District 10. For alley-view houses, the average price in District 1 was VND259 million ($11,164) per square meter, 32 percent higher than District 3 and 52 percent higher than District 10. For apartments, the average price in District 1 was VND114 million ($4,914) per square meter, twice that of the second-ranked District 10. Dwindling real estate supply in HCMC as population increases has pushed real estate prices up in recent years, especially in central business districts. According to real estate firm Savills, total supply, which includes unsold units and newly built units in the city in the last quarter of 2018, fell 44 percent year-on-year. This number fell by a further 34 percent … [Read more...] about District 1 house prices top Saigon real estate chart

Truong Van Long is Vietnamese in name only. He was born in Cambodia and has lived there for decades, including many years in a floating house on the Tonle Sap lake where he still lives. But his days on the water are numbered. Citing concerns over pollution and overfishing last year, Cambodian authorities have moved hundreds of ethnic Vietnamese families in the central province of Kampong Chhnang to land. More than 1,000 ethnic Vietnamese families, including Truong Van Long’s, who are still on the water will be relocated to land in the coming months, provincial authorities have said. "Why move us from the water? We are not in anyone’s way, and there is nowhere else for us to go," said Troung Van Long, seated on the floor of his blue-colored houseboat. "The officials say we are polluting the water, but it is industries and city people who do that. We just want to make a living from fishing - we will starve if we are moved," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Ethnic … [Read more...] about No room on water, no home on land for Cambodia’s ethnic Vietnamese

The Department of Population and Family Planning has proposed subsidizing or waiving hospital fees for the delivery of the second child and offering families having two children soft loans to buy or rent houses. These are meant only for official residents of the city and not migrants, the department said in the proposal, which will be submitted to the administration for drafting the population policy for 2021-25. Other recommendations include extending maternity leave from six months to one year for having the second child and giving the father a month off, increasing the number of days of annual paid leave from 12 for employees having kids under five, and subsidizing kindergarten fees at public facilities for families with two kids. In the last two decades the city's fertility rate has fallen from 1.76 children per woman to just 1.33 against the current national average of 2.1. The rate is "seriously low", and would keep falling without timely intervention, Le Van Thanh, former head … [Read more...] about Saigon couples might get incentives to have second kid