City planning in a revolution: Cuba, 1959–61

Abstract

The general goal of city planning, as a profession and as an academic discipline, is to guide cities through continual conflicts created by the social and economic forces that support or oppose change. These conflicts are magnified during a political revolution, when a primary concern of city leaders and the supporting population is to determine which public policies will be preserved intact, which will be modified (and how), and which no longer serve the new conditions created by the revolution. The purpose of this paper is to discuss events that took place during the first three years of the Cuban Revolution, 1959–62, in order to identify problems and opportunities that emerged due to the impact of new public policies upon city planning processes in the largest Cuban cities. Because these experiences are related to contemporary issues in education and professional practice, this analysis may be of special interest to institutions and professionals in Hispanic American countries. This paper has been writ...