Reinvesting in Havana: Housing Commodification and Gentrification in the Central Neighbourhoods of a Socialist City in the Global South

Abstract

This article addresses the commodification of housing in Havana from 2011 onwards. It argues that the theories of gentrification and rent-gap can illuminate aspects of the transformation of the Cuban capital, even though these theories originated in capitalist urban contexts and that in Cuba the state is responsible for determining the value and ownership of land. The analysis of digital real estate ads on four platforms between 2012 and 2020 allows us to estimate the price and location of properties sold, their relationship to economic reinvestment in the central areas of the city, and how the geographic factors that define centrality are increasingly compromised by touristification and more generally by the commodification of housing. The urban transformations studied in this initial article on the real estate market and gentrification in the Cuban capital allow us to highlight that, on one hand, the transformation of housing into a commodity demonstrates the erosion of socialist values in urban production and, on the other, the creation of a real estate market in Havana has reinforced the connection of the Cuban city with transnational capitalist circulation. The article considers the economic and political context in which the market develops, then explains the methodology of big-small data in a context of limited access to information, followed by an analysis characterising Havana's market that examines the importance of spatial centrality and transnational flows of people and capital.

Gentrification in the Command Economy: A Story of Pyongyang Metropolitan Area in North Korea

“…Gentrification in Havana, Cuba, was associated with Decree Law 288, the 2011 law that allowed Cuban citizens to buy and sell houses and own up to two houses. The case of gentrification in Havana, Cuba, comes in two forms (Jolivet and Alba-Carmichael, 2021) Gentrification in the Sovetsky neighborhood of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, can be said to be a national-led strategy in a socio-political context (Valiyev and Wallwork, 2019). However, Baku's gentrification is not only explained as a result of the introduction of the market following the collapse of the Soviet Union, but it is also different from the slum district cleanup project in China.…”

“…The previous studies related to gentrification were conducted mainly in capitalist cities in the West. However, some studies deal with socialist systems or state-led gentrification, which shows that the power of capital is more influential than the political system or class structure (Valiyev and Wallwork, 2019;Jolivet andAlba-Carmichael, 2021, Tsang andHsu, 2022). Here, we probed the possibility of gentrification in the North Korean system by examining the cases of the socialist system and state-led gen-trification and looking at urban development and urban space restructuring in North Korea.…”

Commodifying Havana? Private accumulation, assetisation and marketisation in the Cuban metropolis

“…Indeed, with the latter group acquiring real estate in central neighbourhoods like Old Havana and El Vedado, many Havana properties were converted into private businesses catering to international tourists and travel (Jolivet and Alba-Carmichael, 2021). As a result, the pre-pandemic boom not only contributed to an acceleration of local house prices and gentrification effects (Baldoquin et al, 2020), it also boosted the growth of self-employment in Havana’s emerging private sector (Simoni, 2018).…”

“…However, the fact that a ‘mature’ market characterised by steady investments, stable prices and local demand did not materialise, was not due to exogenous shocks only. In hindsight, the legalisation of property sales at market prices was a crucial step towards the re-commodification of Havana’s housing stock (Jolivet and Alba-Carmichael, 2021). Yet with Cuban nationals only being allowed to invest in one residential property and one vacation home (Miglioli, 2021), asset-based housing accumulation remained a controlled process.…”

“…Evidently, monetary inflation also affects reinvestment in housing. Although some Cuban nationals saw a chance to buy property as a hedge against inflation (Jolivet and Alba-Carmichael, 2021: 270), Day Zero generally undermined the property market as Cuban nationals need spare cash and hard currency to buy essential goods and scarce products (Fieser, 2021). As one interviewee commented: I own four short-term rentals and one paladar [a private restaurant] in Havana, but right now the market is completely down.…”