I do a lot of complaining about congestion of traffic, about noise and about how many of the streets are not big enough to accommodate all the people that are using them in regards to the area of Da Nang that I currently live in. Most of the rest of them are similar with these things as well but recently I have been made aware of an area that is outside the city a bit and a great deal of resources are being poured into it.
It is called FTP City and they are no where near finished building it but what they have finished so far looks to be really nice.
This is just an artists rendition of what they think it will look like, almost none of this is complete as of yet. I have rode my bike down there a few times to see what is complete and mostly they have the university campus, the giant FTP building (the thing that looks like a stadium) and 2 of the large high rise condo buildings are complete.
This is a much more recent aeriel view of what it looks like. It looks like a construction site and i'll be honest, most of it is and will be for a while but one thing they did that was a pretty fantastic idea is that they built the really tall ones that were going to make most of the noise, first. They also built this amazing park that has fountains in it and loads of open space.
Once again this is computer graphics but it is a pretty accurate one as I have seen this building with my own eyes. The really fantastic thing about living here is that there has been attention to detail about the grounds around it and some of it is dedicated to park space and nature... they aren't just selling all the land possible and putting up cement in every direction. Also, the bottom two floors all the way around the building are dedicated as commercial space. From what I saw there was 2 grocery stores, a gym, a kindergarten, and a few various restaurants and an ice cream place. The 2nd and 3rd buildings that are underway are going to have a similar layout.
Very little of the entire overall plan has yet to be completed but they are working on it constantly and this is one thing I noticed when I was there. Since this is one autonomous project they don't have annoying as hell construction crews that don't give a damn about how much noise they make to the adjacent properties because it's not their business so what do they care? Out at FTP city the entire land project is done by one group and they appeared to have very real standards including adhering to noise reduction hours and also crews that are all wearing uniforms and have proper safety protocols.
maybe that doesn't sound special to you if you live in the west, but over here in Vietnam for the most part when there is construction, the people are just wearing whatever, bang and cut away at whatever they are doing without any concern whatsoever as to who they disturb. FPT city seems to be very concerned with not just completing their entire project, but also with keeping the people who have already invested very happy that they made that choice.
I'm not saying that I am going to buy a unit, but if I was going to they can be acquired for a lot less money than you might think. For around $80,000 you can own a 2-bedroom condo. Now I know that is a lot of money but when it comes to purchasing something that you now OWN, it isn't really.
I'll be heading that way in the next few weeks to take some boots on the ground photos and get more information about the parks and noise levels but thus far, I am quite excited about the fact that this exits.