CUBAN TRANSITIONS

While exploring Havana in the first few days of our trip, I found one of the most interesting, beautiful, and devastating aspects of the city to be the buildings crumbling throughout most of the streets. On our first tour of the city I was surprised to learn that between two and three buildings collapse daily, and to see the consequences of this destruction that has been going on for decades, even in some of the most prominent city buildings.

The deterioration of buildings in Havana illustrates the lack of resources available, or made available, to go into the necessary rebuilding efforts. While there was a consistent presence of construction, scaffolding, and building taking place, the extremely large amount of destruction made many of these efforts seem so futile. While walking around it seemed rather evident that without emphasizing rebuilding as a major priority – and allocating the necessary money and work to the cause – the reconstruction of so much deterioration is a quite dubious ambition.

The lack of funding for reconstruction is complicated by the city’s very prominent priority on ensuring that everybody has access to housing. This sort of paradox affirms that everyone will have a place to live, even if the living conditions are (much) less than ideal. Throughout Havana there were many buildings that from the street appeared uninhabitable, but that were clearly lived in. Overpopulation within Havana further contributes to issues with housing, especially because negative population growth is causing the population’s average age to increase, depleting the work force while hindering a large amount of civilians in need for better, safer homes.

One aspect of the “crumbling city” that struck me most was the attitude many cubans seemed to take to the issue. Just as the government has not made reconstruction their primary concern, many of the people we talked to seemed relatively un-distraught over the fact that many of the buildings are literally falling apart. While many complained about their low living conditions, others simply seemed grateful to have places to live. However there is clearly much discontent throughout the population due to this housing crisis, which causes poor living conditions, unsanitary streets, and over crowding in homes. Much of this discontent comes not even from the over crowding, but from the inability for young people to leave home and start their own independent lives when they are ready.

There is pride and publicity for buildings that have already been repaired and renovated, such as this building in Old Havana

While the vast project of reconstruction in Cuba is humbling to anticipate, changes lurking under Raul might indeed inspire some progress. The increase in private property, for example, could perhaps improve the housing situation through inspiring more renovation and construction. If people have more of an ownership over their property they may be more inclined to invest in improvements. Other potentially beneficial changes recently in place are “credit facilities” to help families who need to repair their homes. These changes might not only be beneficial in adding manpower to the reconstruction efforts, but also in circulating more capital in the housing market to potentially expand and alleviate some of the poor conditions and over crowding.