The population of Hanoi is about 3,145,300 (2005), with an overall population density of 3,495 people per square kilometer. In the urban area, an area of 84 square kilometers, the population density is considerably higher, approaching 20,100 per square kilometer. [4].
Hanoi's population is constantly growing, a reflection of the fact that the city is both a major metropolitan area of northern Vietnam, and also the country's political center. This population growth puts a great deal of pressure on the infrastructure, some of which is antiquated and dates from the early twentieth century.
Most of the current residents of Hanoi are from different provinces all over the country; the proportion of families who have lived there for more than three generations is small. Even in the Old Quarter, where commerce started hundreds years ago with mostly family businesses, many of the storefronts are now operated by merchants and retailers from other provinces. The original owners often rent out the storefronts and live further inside the house, or simply move out of the neighborhood altogether. The pace of change escalated rapidly after the government abandoned centralized economic policies, and loosened the district-based household registrar system.
The considerate and genteel nature of Hanoians is occasionally referred to in idioms and literature. In reality, these are a reflection of a past when Hanoi was a center for talented artists and educated intellectuals, heavily entrenched in Confucian values which placed modesty and consideration for others above personal desires. As the opening up of the economy has brought other pressures on people's daily life, advocates for traditional social and family values are in many ways helping to counter an "everyone for himself" mentality.