Havana, Cuba And The Dead Hand Of The Municipal Planner

Havana, Cuba And The Dead Hand Of The Municipal Planner
6/11/2013 @ 11:32AM

As I walked deeper into Havana's Vedado district, well off the tourist
track, I could feel my anxiety rising. It was the same angst prompted by
the human curation of every detail at Disneyland, where nothing feels
natural or organic. I encountered a government-run sandwich shop at a
corner, followed by a government-run pizzeria at the next corner, then a
crumbling concrete bus stop with vague 1960s styling at the next corner;
followed by a sandwich shop, then a pizzeria, then a concrete bus stop,
repeating with little variation for block after block. It was like I was
walking through a 3D model of the template a government municipal
planner conceived decades ago.

We sometimes refer to the "dead hand of the architect," the concept that
the architect's choices—often driven by social conventions prevailing at
the time of construction—constrain future building occupants decades
later. For example, office buildings from the 1930s or earlier rarely
provided many womens' restrooms because there weren't many women in the
workforce; as it turns out, an architectural constraint as workplace
demographics changed. The dead hand of the architect reflects the fact
that capital investments are costly, and those costs are amortized over
the project's useful life. It can be too expensive to fix architectural
design choices through renovation, so the assumptions and social norms
animating the architect's design persist until the building is replaced.

The dead hand of the architect rules over Cuba; or more precisely, it's
the dead hand of municipal planners. Decades ago, someone decided upon
the designs of concrete bus stop and the location of government-run
restaurants, and those choices live on today–even as social conventions
have evolved around it. In a sense, the fixed infrastructure and
cultural evolution work against each other; society is changing but the
infrastructure isn't, and something has to give.

Eventually governments must renovate and replace the infrastructure they
provide. However, the Cuba government lacks the money to do so.
Financially strapped by the other services it provides to its citizens,
the Cuban government won't replace or redesign its infrastructure until
it becomes absolutely necessary (and maybe not even then). You often
hear Cuba described as a "time capsule." In part that means the
infrastructure is frozen because the government can't afford replacing
it to reflect modern cultural norms.

Time has largely stood still in Cuba since the 1960s, but change is in
the air. When Cuba no longer has a Castro in power, the US government
surely will further loosen restrictions on American tourism to Cuba.
(Already, due to recent liberalizations of the rules, almost every
tourist I saw in Cuba was American). More American tourists will mean
more American dollars, higher expectations for service levels, and
(presumably) infrastructure upgrades to more modern specifications. If
you wanted to see and experience a "socialist" Cuba, your window of
opportunity is closing rapidly. Go now, before the inevitable
Cancun-ification of Cuba.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericgoldman/2013/06/11/havana-cuba-and-the-dead-hand-of-the-municipal-planner/