Winners and Losers in Restoring Old Havana

The socialist leadership seeks to remedy the tattered fabric of Havana’s built environment by drawing on a comparative advantage: tourism. Since 1959, tourism had never been a leading economic sector. Fidel Castro had often vowed that Cuba would not become an island of bourgeoisie-catering bartenders and chambermaids as did other Caribbean nations (Eckstein 1977). Accordingly, in 1975, just 25,000 nonmilitary foreigners visited Cuba, while in the year 2000, the figure should approach two million (Scarpaci 1998a). Following UNESCO’s recognition of Havana as a World Heritage Site, few planners, architects, and politicians imagined that in just seven years, the USSR would disband, and Cuba’s economy would enter a tailspin. In the uncanny fashion that the revolutionary leadership views opportunity in times of crisis (Codrescu 1999), attention was again cast on Habana Vieja, the city’s original gateway to the world.