HABITAT: Havana Rises from the Ruins

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Nov 25 1995 (IPS) - Piles of rubble, forgotten trash heaps, decorated shops, markets, fairs and small private businesses make up today the contradictory image of the capital of Cuba, a city seemingly determined to emerged from its crisis.

Serenaded by poets and troubadours, Havana has reached the end of this century still enchanting visitors with its colonial architecture, its colors and the sea, but above all because it is the principal stage of the transformations the island is undergoing.

Over several years of general scarcity and stagnation, the authorities have retaken the initiative in selected neighborhoods. The State competes timidly with several private business and Cubans look for a way to purge the crisis from their homes.

While in other Cuban cities one can still find symptoms of the old idealism, reality has come crashing down in the city where the so=called “special period” added to accumulated social problems left unresolved for many years.

“What I most want is that the building I live in doesn’t fall down,” said 59 year old Maria Martinez, who, as many Havana residents did, went on Nov. 16 to circle the ceiba tree that marks the spot where the first mass in Cuba was held.

Cubans don’t know the exact date of the founding of the village of San Cristobal de la Havana, some 476 years ago, and so they celebrate Nov. 16, day of San Cristobal in the Catholic book of saints, and around the ceiba, sacred tree of the Yoruba religion.

Accustomed to praying for the sick, Maria only thinks about preserving her home. “It’s old, falling to pieces, but it’s mine and much better than living in shelters where one doesn’t know when you will ever leave,” she said.

Maria’s family – two daughters and three grandchildren – are on a list of more than 22,000 residents of this capital to be placed in emergency housing because of dangerous living conditions.

In 1994, Havana witnessed 614 building collapses, 375 demolitions of unsafe buildings and thousands of emergency repairs in a province where, according to official sources, 49 per cent of the housing stock is in fair or poor condition.

According to Conrado Martinez, mayor of the capital city, “each year, more housing is destroyed than repaired or built. This is the problem we confront.”

Considered the worst social problem of the Cuban capital, the scarcity and deterioration of housing compounds the problems of water, transportation, sanitation, roads and environment.

HABITAT: Havana Rises from the Ruins

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Nov 25 1995 (IPS) - Piles of rubble, forgotten trash heaps, decorated shops, markets, fairs and small private businesses make up today the contradictory image of the capital of Cuba, a city seemingly determined to emerged from its crisis.
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