Havana

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Havana

• The Search for Revolutionary Urbanism

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CUBA Ninety Miles From Florida
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Contemporary Cuba Facts

• 11.4 million (2004 est.)
• 0.34 growth rate (est.)
• -1.58 migrant(s)/1,000 people
• 51 mulatto, 37 white, 17 black, 1 Chinese

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Havana First Center of Spanish Imperialism

• 1516 founded in as a Spanish military outpost.
• 1553 Office of the governor transferred from
  eastern Cuba (Santiago) to Havana.

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Havana Gem of Spanish Imperialism

• 18th Century
• Larger than Boston and NYC
• Fortifications erected after seizure by Royal
  Navy (Great Britain)
• Havanas Shipyard
• 19th Century
• Increased Trade
• Growing middle class
• Centers for arts
• Residential housing

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Cuba remained under Spanish control after the
continental colonies gained independence

• Insurgency develops in second half of nineteenth
  century
• U.S. sympathy for insurgents
• Spanish-American War
• Remember the Maine!
• War lasts less than a year
• U. S. occupies Cuba before granting conditional
  independence
• Platt Amendment gives US great influence

January 25, 1898 -- The U.S.S. Maine enters
Havana harbor, about three weeks before it was
blown up
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The First Three Decades of Independence

• Havana.
• City Beautiful movement in the tropics (1900
  1930)

• U.S. investment - engine of Cuban modernization
• Sugar refineries produced white Gold of Cuba
• United Fruit
• Hershey chocolate

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TOURISM

• Cuban tourism became popular with Americans in
  the 1920s.
• Exotic
• Tropical
• Spanish heritage
• Escape from puritanical constraints of U.S.
  culture

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Cuban Politics in 1920s

• Havana reinforced as primate city
• Cuban presidents strongly influenced by sugar
  interests in the United States
• Depression (1929-32) has political consequences
• Unease over U.S. influence in Cuban economy
• President Gerardo Machado threatens U.S. economic
  interests
• Cuban armed forces overthrew President Machado
  and install figurehead as president (Manuel de
  Cespedes).

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U.S. intervention in 1930s/1940s

• Social revolution leads to power and influence
  for groups from the interior
• Sergeant Fulgencio Batista
• Peasant background
• Empowered enlisted ranks of the army
• Coordination with middle class elements from
  Havana
• Middle sectors led by Grau San Martin
• 1940 U.S. style constitution adopted
• Failure of U.S. style democracy leads to military
  coup of 1952

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Batista Dictatorship (1952-58)

• Initially popular
• Loss of support leads to human rights violations
• Became symbol of U.S. imperialism
• Ties with organized crime
• Havana achieved unprecedented primacy

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Fidel Castro

• Born August 13, 1926
• Attended Catholic School
• Law Degree from University of Havana

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Road to Revolution

• Tied to Santiago de Cuba the second city
• Ortodoxo student leader
• 1953 (July 26) launched a failed attack on the
  Moncada army barracks
• Imprisoned for two years
• 1956 (November 26) Landed in Cuba from Mexican
  exile
• January 1, 1959 topples Batista government

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Pico Turquino, highest elevation of the Sierra
Maestra.
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Revolutionary Havana The Early Years

• Havana neglected viewed by Fidel as a center of
  imperialist exploitation
• minimum of urbanism and a maximum of ruralism
• Built schools, housing, hospitals in provincial
  cities
• Exception Habana del Este middle class
  development given to working class (1959-60)

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Havana and the Revolutionary Government Habana
del Este Workers Middle Class

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Emphasis on Poder Local

• U. S. style local government institutions
  abolished
• Committees for the Defense of the Revolution
  Participation or control?
• Community Councils

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Havana Aftermath of Collapse of the Soviet Union

• Havana became even more stressed economically
• Fidel forced to search for other viable economic
  alternatives.
• Solution a new political economy for Havana
• starting in the early 1990s called The Special
  Period in a Time of Peace.
• Promoted entrepreneurship and changes in
  governance in Havana.
• Similarities to emphasis on tourism under Batista

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Innovative Urban Strategy for Difficult Times

• Selective gentrification of Havana,
• Employed 1982 UN Education, Scientific, and
  Cultural Organization
• Old Havana declared a World Heritage Site.

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Characteristics of the URBAN Reforms

• Legalization of the dollar and certain jobs in
  the private sector in 1993.
• Habaguanex the first state corporation to promote
  the tourist industry, and urban redevelopment in
  Havana was created in 1994.
• http//www.habaguanex.com/
• Decree 143, passed in 1994, made Old Havana an
  economic free zone.
• Law 77, passed in 1995 to promote programs of
  direct foreign investment.
• Decree 165, passed in 1996 created economic free
  trade zones to help with importation and
  exportation

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Habaguanex

• Special Privileges - Bypass Customs
  Regulations- Only Cuban Entity with Complete
  Control Over Operations- Access to hard currency
  

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Results

• By 2002 two million people each year were
  traveling to Cuba
• Habaguanex is acquiring power to shape Havana,
  but in theory still operates under the control of
  the communist party
• 150,000 new jobs in the private sector
• The state is able to generate funds from taxes
  and business licensing fees.

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Havana SocialisT Gentrification?

• Hotel Parque Central

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Foreign Enclave in a Socialist Revolution
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Havana MOST CUBAS

• Households receive meat rations monthly
• Milk not always available
• Prices of produce and other farm products too
  high for most
• Work long hours to keep up with prices

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New Havana Economy

• Castro is reversing the policy of refusing to
  invest in city or maintain the physical
  infrastructure
• 100,000 of the dwellings remain uninhabitable
• Government tolerates private-sector jineteros and
  cuentapropista
• Jineteros earn their living working the
  black-market
• Cuentapropistas are entrepreneurs

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Cuban Economy Early 21st Century

• 32.13 billion GDP (2003 est.) mainly in
  services
• 2.6 GDP growth rate (est.)
• 2,900 Per-capita Personal Product
• 4.58 mil labor force
• 78 state sector, 22 non-state sector (est.)
• Recent reforms in Cuban economy modeled on
  Chinas capitalistic communism

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Political Control is still an Issue of Concern

• Privitizing Havana economy undermines socialist
  ideologies that legitimate Castro regime .
• Communist Party leaders fear loss of economic
  influence
• Tourism highlights that foreigners live better
• Cuban government (Ex. Havana) holds 60 of the
  citys public housing stock

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REGIME SURVIVAL REMAINS THE first PRIORITY OF THE
Castro Brothers

• Police are paid more than most professionals
  (physicians, university professors,
  engineers/architects)
• High profile dissidents imprisoned or relocated
  for reeducation
• Highest officials expected to tow the line Perez
  Roque 2009

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Havana A Return to Urban Primacy?