In the general picture of social housing across the country, Hanoi is a special locality, not only because of its population size, rapid urbanization or great immigration pressure, but also because of the way the capital is gradually turning policies into specific actions, although that journey still has a lot of work to do.
Every year, Hanoi welcomes hundreds of thousands of workers from provinces and cities to study, work and start a business. That generation of people creates vitality for the city, but also poses an increasingly urgent problem of settlement. This is the starting point of the first lesson: social housing must be considered an essential social security infrastructure, cannot be done according to the movement or just stop at paper goals.
One of the factors that create success is the decisive role of specific mechanisms and policies. The National Assembly's issuance of Resolution No. 201 dated May 29, 2025 to pilot a number of specific mechanisms and policies for social housing development is considered a big boost. But it is the way Hanoi proactively coordinates, advises and quickly implements these mechanisms that is the difference. Shortening the process, removing the process of selecting investors, reducing intermediary procedures - those are not easy things, but if not done, social housing will forever be "stuck" in the procedures.
However, rapid development must be accompanied by good management. The story of people lining up to submit documents, waiting for many days and nights at some projects shows that if they are not carefully prepared from the stage of receiving documents and guiding procedures, humane policies can easily become social pressure.
Hanoi also learned an equally important lesson: Social housing cannot be separated from urban planning and infrastructure. Social housing development needs to be located in the overall urban space, associated with industrial parks, service areas and public transport systems.
Looking at it more broadly, Hanoi is not without problems. Procedures still need to be further standardized, supply is still not enough to meet demand, and population pressure will continue to increase. But from what has been done and is being done, one thing can be clearly seen: When the government is determined, policies are synchronous, businesses accompany and people are placed at the center, social housing is no longer a "difficult problem", but becomes a pillar of inclusive development.
The Hanoi People's Council has also just issued policies related to social housing. That is to expand the group of social housing buyers who do not need to draw in Hanoi. At the same time, it set a target of developing 18,000 social housing units by 2026.
Lessons about social housing in Hanoi are worth referring to other localities to complete the social housing targets for the following years, aiming to successfully achieve the target of 1 million social housing units by 2030 set by the Government.
