Share
Modern Cities: PH vs Vietnam
ReportQuestion
Please briefly explain why you feel this question should be reported.
Does the Philippines have more modern cities than Vietnam as Filipinos claim?
applestackman
Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link and will create a new password via email.
Does the Philippines have more modern cities than Vietnam as Filipinos claim?
Answers ( 2 )
Please briefly explain why you feel this answer should be reported.
I’m not one of those Filipinos because quite frankly, who gives a sh*t? We generally don’t. I am not familiar with Vietnam and its cities and their extent of modernization. I can only speak for the Philippines and here are bulletpoints: There are 81 provinces in the Philippines. Each province has a “city”. But strictly speaking, for a place to be called a “city” it just has to have an airport, a boat dock and other modes of transport that allow for commerce/travel/population mobility. Which means a place with the tallest building being one with 5 floors can be a city if it has an airport. There are many cities like that here.Of the 81 provinces and bazillion (146) cities in the Philippines, only 3 are known to be relatively more urban than the others: Metro Manila, Cebu and Davao. These cities are large, densely populated, have international/domestic airports, skyscrapers, modern buildings built within the last 2 decades. By modern buildings I mean automatic doors, automatic faucets, escalators, elevators, modern interiors. They may be residential/condos, business or mixed use buildings.This means only 2% of the cities have truly highly urbanized spaces (3 out of 146). And I say “spaces” because Metro Manila, for example, is an unplanned suburban sprawl and the modernized spaces are “pockets” of private communities and business districts.As for sqkm it might even be smaller. I don’t know the figure, unfortunately.You might find on the internet that there are more cities considered to be “highly urbanized”, but those are probably by Philippine standards. By international standards, that is not the case. Any well-traveled Filipino knows.The Philippines is still a developing country. And a lot of factors have been hindrances to its development such as corruption and just the fact that it is an archipelago (7k islands) and has 18 diverse regions that speak different languages. Not to mention our brain drain problem where we lose highly-skilled workers (white-collar, as in medical professionals, scientists and engineers) to developed countries. Does this help for comparison? Then again, nothing beats actual experience. You come here and I go there, then we can make better conclusions.
Please briefly explain why you feel this answer should be reported.
I travelled to a city called Makati in phillipines which seemed to finish the moment I enter the city. “ Is that it? I thought” Coz Filipinos compare it with hanoi, Saigon, Bangkok etc which are more or less bigger than 500 km2. No setting up skyscrapers is not considered to be a modern city. And what's the point of those skyscrapers if railways, roads, internet don't reach the farthest corners. Its for show and to raise the ego of local population. If you wish to live with that nonsense then fine. Otherwise build the damn infrastructue in other places too.