Cuba Libre?

Cars in historic Havana

I think it would be a mistake to get too excited about the re-opening of the U.S. Embassy in Havana today.

We visited Cuba last year and were surprised at how 'closed' the place remains.   We had two guides and one of them was relatively open about the realities of life in the country, and also restrictions on freedom of speech and thought, until the senior guide was in earshot!  Then he clammed up pretty quickly.  I do not think that this is a culture that will change quickly, and certainly not under the current regime.

And then there is the state of the place! As readers of this blog know I am not keen on governments, or indeed councils, owing property.  In my experience public buildings are rarely cared for properly and the value to the public purse rarely properly realised.

Some of the dire examples of public ownership in this country pale into insignificance however when passing through the once elegant suburbs of Havana.  Many tourists do not get beyond the atmospheric, if somewhat scruffy,  downtown historic area.  However, as can be seen from the picture below, large swathes of old houses further out of town are simply falling down.  I took this from a moving bus, so apologise for the 'soft focus' and 'slant'.

Seafront properties in outer Havana

In the interior the situation is even worse as can be seen from the photo that I took of empty factories in the industrial town of Hershey.

As was seen in post Perestroika Russia, public ownership of property over a prolonged period, results in urban squalor and decay.  The state cannot be trusted to look after things for long.