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The emergence of informal settlements in the Global South has been at the centre of debates regarding sustainable development. While the visibility of informal settlements has been recognised as an important issue in the politics of upgrading projects, there is limited studies that systematically explore the development of informal settlements over time. This study primarily uses historical maps and satellite images as the main sources of data and adopts urban mapping as a key analytical method to conduct a study of the relations between informal and formal morphologies in the context of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) over 120 years. The research findings reveal that informal morphologies in Hanoi and HCMC have increased at different rates over the observed period. The study also finds that the development of informal/formal morphologies vary depending on the distance from the city core to peri-urban areas. By providing a better understanding of the formation and transformation of informal/formal morphologies over an extended period, the findings of this study highlight the need for a radical shift in current urban policies towards an integrated urban planning and design process that can more effectively address the relationships between informal and formal morphologies over time. • The article explores and maps the adaptations of informal/formal morphologies in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City over 120 years. • The study shows how historical maps can be used to produce spatial knowledge on the formation and transformation of informal settlements in the Global South. • The distribution and development of informal/formal morphologies vary depending on the distance from the city core to peri-urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Village settlements in peri-urban areas have largely been transformed into dense neighbourhoods in the process of rapid urbanisation and become Villages-in-the-City (ViCs). Although ViCs may appear chaotic and haphazard, they are not entirely unplanned as they have generally emerged and become consolidated through complex incremental adaptations, which have remained understudied. In this article, we explore the morphogenesis of ViCs by drawing on evidence from multiple case studies in three Vietnamese cities, including Hanoi, Danang, and Ho Chi Minh City. Adopting a comparative case study research design and using multiscale urban mapping, we analyse the formal/informal morphologies at the metropolitan scale and investigate the process of morphogenesis at the neighbourhood scale. The findings of this research provide a better understanding of the spatiality of ViCs at different scales, which can effectively inform the development of contextually responsive and spatially grounded planning and design interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities in the context of what is considered as the Global South are experiencing rapid urbanisation through which various villages have been incorporated into the city and became Villages-in-the-City (ViCs). While ViCs are here to stay, little is known about their morphogenesis as they have generally been considered as part of the negative image of the city and the related planning policies often tend to merely focus on eradication. Deploying urban mapping as a key method and using the Google Earth database, this study explores the morphogenesis of ViCs and maps the incremental transformations of building footprints and access networks across three case studies in Hanoi city, Vietnam. The findings of this paper can inform the ways in which the built environment professions can engage with the upgrading and integration of ViCs. The outcome of this study also challenges the conventional narratives and constructed images that simply consider ViCs as haphazard and disordered settlements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]