How to (and how not to) do a public beautification project

Da Nang is a city that is one of the most important cities in all of Vietnam as far as tourism is concerned. There are other places that people visit more frequently, but Da Nang is the city that is most accessible that isn't also a capital city with what I consider to be far too many people in it.

Because of this, the city is always doing something to try to beautify the area and keep it fresh and interesting for people that are visiting. One of the main places that they do projects to keep the tourists happy is on or near the beachfront, which is obviously what most people come this way for.

here is an example of something they did near the beach that I think is just wonderful. They put in some plants, the stretched some bamboo in various directions, and put some genuine time into making it look nice on the boardwalk. This display is quite durable, and it is made mostly of natural materials that will stand the test of time. I'm sure that most people are quite familiar with how resilient bamboo is and this structure will be here for years if they just maintain it a little bit. The fact that they put some flowers and some places to sit around it is a nice touch as well.

Nicely done, whoever created this creator guy!

Now we have the opposite and unfortunately it is far more common here than what you see above.

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This is not my picture, hence the sourcing of the image below it. The intention is the same though. what happens is at various places in Da Nang they find a large walking area and then put up some sort of spectacle for people to walk under an then set up some food stall and games and other things that tourists and locals alike enjoy. They aren't always successful though and if you look at those light-up archways in the image above this is where I am going to try to make my point.

Those things are crudely constructed steel or aluminum structures that are meant to be moved when the time calls for it. In cases such as the now shut down walking street near my condo, the walking street didn't have the allure that the creators had hoped and after a season they decided to walk away from the project altogether.

When they decided that the walking street wasn't feasible anymore, they simply pushed the light up archways to the side of the road and just left them there. This has been sitting here, blocking the footpath for months. I think we can safely say that if no one has come to pick it up yet, they aren't going to.

In the background there you can see the remnants of the failed walking street as it has been reduced to just a couple of food stalls and of course, half a dozen massage places where they harass anyone that walks by it. The marking off of the street with the light up mobile archways no longer happens and instead of taking it away and repurposing or recycling it, they just leave it on the side of the road. This is one of those "not my job" sort of things I guess.

The thing that gets under my skin about this isn't just that it is an eyesore but the hypocritical nature of it all. All around Vietnam there are government signs reminding locals and tourists about the importance of protecting our environment and all of us pitching in to keep this place beautiful but in the meantime the very people that are lecturing us on this sort of behavior just leave these giant pieces of rusting metal on the side of the road and don't ever come and get it. I don't know what the idea here is... possibly that someone eventually is going to buy the massive plot of land beyond that fence and then they will pay to have it disposed of.

This city, and the beach area part of it that I live in has the opportunity to be a truly wonderful and beautiful place. Unfortunately the government is in the business of "do what I say, not what I do."