Productive Frictions

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings

Walking, biking, and transit are known to shape street commerce, whereas private motorized mobility is assumed to act against it. I advance a new theory of productive frictions according to which opportunities for street commerce depend not on the mode of transportation but on the mode of interaction between people in motion and the built environment. The construct of productive frictions is grounded in Vietnam’s motorbike-centric urbanism. There, what core factors relate private motorized mobility with vibrant retail that anchors street life? To answer this question, I recorded 68 interviews and 333 video clips of street life in Ho Chi Minh City in 2018. Grounded theory methods guided systematic data collection, coding, and mixed methods analyses that led to the conceptualization of productive frictions. Productive frictions are the opportunities for social interactions produced by the contact of people on the move with the built environment they traverse. In Ho Chi Minh City, the core factors that create contact and make motorbike riders particularly prone to productive frictions include: slow speed, direct sensory perceptions, ease of weaving in and out of traffic, and abundant stimuli from stalls, stores, and people lining the streets. Evidence suggests that motorbike riders experience productive frictions less intensely than pedestrians but over greater distances, whereas automobilists generally experience low levels of productive frictions.

Takeaway for practice

Productive frictions support small businesses, which shape accessibility, economic vibrancy, and street life. Cities like Ho Chi Minh City experiencing rising automobility should preserve motorized two-wheeled mobility for their productive frictions benefits, at least until mass transit is sufficiently developed to support dense and walkable urbanism.

Keywords:

• grounded theory
• mixed methods
• motorized two-wheelers
• street commerce
• Vietnam

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank Ann Forsyth and three anonymous reviewers for thoughtful comments that significantly helped improve this article; my interviewees for their participation; Mai Tấn Quỳnh, Nguyễn Ngọc Thanh Tâm, and Nguyễn Thị Tuyết Mai for outstanding research support; my dissertation advisor Tridib Banerjee and committee members Marlon Boarnet, Manuel Castells, and Annette Kim for excellent guidance; the ACSP and the USC Price School of Public Policy for best dissertation awards; the Women’s Transportation Seminar, Rail Association of Southern California, California Transportation’s Foundation, and the Ecole Francaise d’Extreme Orient for research support; Gregory Randolph, Dylan Connor, Chanam Lee, and David Schumacher for detailed feedback; participants in the 2021 JPER Writing Workshop for Young Scholars and the 2019 ACSP and AESOP conferences for helpful comments; and the broader Price School at USC and SGSUP at ASU for continued support.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the author upon reasonable request.

SUPPLEMENTAL DATA

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2022.2155687

Notes

1 Altogether, streets and parking spaces represent 8% to 10% of urban land in Vietnam—as opposed to about 30% in the United States, for reference (Huu & Ngoc, 2021)—and alleyways that are often too narrow for cars to pass represent up to 85% of these spaces (Gibert, 2019).

2 Mixed uses are intrinsic to the vernacular architecture—a narrow shophouse with ground-floor retail—and to the fact that urban development happened mostly organically, along transportation corridors, without single-use zoning, and before cars. Also, a certain tolerance toward informal street vending contributes to shaping local urbanism.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Huê-Tâm Jamme

HUÊ-TÂM JAMME ([email protected]) is an assistant professor at the Arizona State University’s School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning.