Mainland Hanoi City in the west of the capital is a rare residential project that is now occupied after Ha Tay Province was merged into Hanoi in 2008.
Property prices there are now among the highest in Hanoi, with a house costing VND150 million ($6,300) per square meter.
Construction began in 2007 under the name Splendora Bac An Khanh, and it cost $2.6 billion to build. Its name was changed early last year.
Now it has four condominium complexes and hundreds of villas, along with schools, supermarkets, and restaurants.
But the nearby project Nam Anh Khanh, three kilometers away, is mostly unoccupied even though all its developments are almost complete.
The project broke ground in 2006 with a plan for nearly 1,800 houses, but due to difficulties in acquiring licenses and capital, construction was paused for years and only resumed in 2015.
Now only a few houses are used as property consultancy offices, coffee shops and restaurants.
Villas and houses are structurally finished but not completed. Empty fields are used by nearby farmers as feeding areas for their buffaloes.
Many roads are littered with construction materials, and villa windows and doors are sealed with bricks.
Houses and villas here are being sold for VND50-70 million per square meter.
Another project, Hinode Royal Park (formerly Kim Chung – Di Trach Urban Area), has yet to be completed.
The project covers 140 hectares, and the plan is to include 1,300 houses, 600 villas and more than ten buildings of condominiums.
Government inspectors have recently found that the developer of the project, Vietracimex, has made many errors in construction and land acquisition.
Other projects remain fields 15 years after plans to develop them were launched.
The Tien Xuan Urban Area project is supposed to cover 1,200 hectares, but nothing has been built yet because developer Sudico is still in the process of seeking licenses from Hanoi authorities.
Ha Phong, a project of 41 hectares, was initially slated for completion by 2014. It was to include hundreds of villas along with houses and condos.
But the project missed the deadline. Few people live there now, and many houses remain unfinished.
Dinh, wearing a hat, sits with her sister to watch their cattle graze inside the project. She has been feeding her cattle here for nearly 10 years.
One of the lots there used to belong to her before the developer bought it for nearly VND50 million. The lot was 1,080 square meters.
Several kilometers away, Diamond Park has roads leading to empty block after empty block vacant of housing. No houses or condos have been built yet even though the project was approved to house over 4,500 people.
Me Linh Vista, covering 59 hectares, was stalled by bureaucracy for over a decade and only restarted again last year.
So far only one block of houses is completed. No workers were seen at the time this photo was taken.
The 55-hectare HUD Me Linh Central project began construction in 2012 and was scheduled for completion by 2021. It comprises 14 blocks of six-story houses.
Houses cost VND102-160 million per square meter. Villas cost VND200-400 million per square meter.
After 15 years, most projects merged from the former western province of Ha Tay have been developed but with low occupancy.
Projects merged from the northwestern area of Me Linh, which used to be part of Vinh Phuc Province, mostly remain fields with no construction.
Me Linh has 47 residential projects that have been approved, including 18 that were approved by Vinh Phuc authorities within a month of Me Linh merging into Hanoi.
