400 streets in HCMC need to be renamed: expert

Among thousands of streets in Vietnam’s biggest city, 311 streets use 132 names, with one name being used for several, Dr. Truong Hoang Truong, dean of the Faculty of Urban Studies at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, HCMC, said at a conference Tuesday.

But Truong said priority should be given to changing the 38 streets that are named after historical figures but the names are incorrect.

For example, Ngo Thoi Nhiem Street in District 3 was named after Ngo Thi Nham, an important Vietnamese scholar and official in the eighteenth century. But the street name had to be changed to avoid showing disrespect to King Tu Duc, whose real name is Nguyen Phuc Hong Nham, according to historians.

Besides, 21 street names in the city have no meaning, Truong said.

The city’s Department of Culture and Sports has also proposed changing the names of many city streets.

“Units tasked with renaming those streets need to coordinate to create favorable conditions for local people,” Truong said. “For example, after updating those streets’ names, people should be provided with papers confirming that their addresses have been changed so that they will not face obstacles in completing administrative procedures.”

The city now has about 3,600 streets with names but there are still many others that remain unnamed.

Truong said: “New urban areas will result in the appearance of many residential areas and many new roads, but the street name storage and procedures have not kept up with that development,” he said, adding that this has resulted in many streets and roads remaining unnamed or without official names.

Until now, HCMC has not applied any advanced technology to naming streets.

So far, the process of naming and changing the names of streets has been carried out in line with the government’s Decree 91, which rules that only the People’s Council, the legislative unit in each city and province, has the authority to decide the names of streets and public works.

Meanwhile, the executive unit of the People’s Committee is in charge of consulting related units on coming up with suggestions for those names.