How Ho Chi Minh City’s Filthy Canal Became a Park

Sewers and storm drains don’t stir most people’s deepest passions. But try creating a modern, economically vibrant city without them.

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s economic capital, has spent the past decade building a modern sanitation and flood control system for the 1.2 million people living along its Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe canal. Cleaning up this once-filthy waterway and creating new sanitation infrastructure has changed the face of the city, transforming it into a model for improving urban infrastructure in difficult settings around the world.