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https://doi.org/10.1177/09562478211032570 1
Environment & Urbanization Copyright © 2021 International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
1–26. DOI: 10.1177/09562478211032570 www.sagepublications.com
Mapping participatory planning in
Havana: patchwork legacies for a
strengthened local governance
CATALINA ORTIZ , ALEJANDRO VALLEJO , JORGE PEÑA,
EMILY MORRIS, JOISELEN CAZANAVE MACÍAS
AND DAYANÉ PROENZA GONZÁLEZ
ABSTRACT In 2019, Cuba approved a new political constitution that calls for
deepening citizen participation to strengthen local governance. The emerging
decentralization processes and the role of new actors in urban development open
new possibilities for inclusive planning. While citizen participation is widely
documented in the global South and under Western liberal democracy regimes,
participatory urban planning in the context of Southern socialist cities such
as Havana has been less scrutinized. This paper aims at mapping the framings,
trajectories and legacies of such participatory planning initiatives. Based on
mapping workshops and desktop research, we find that participatory initiatives
within Havana are spatially dispersed, sporadic, lacking at the city level, and
occurring in isolation at the neighbourhood level. We argue that establishing
sustained participatory urban planning practices in Havana requires decision
makers to scale outwards and upwards the lessons learned from existing initiatives
to foster a city-wide participatory planning strategy.
KEYWORDS decentralization / Havana / Latin American cities / participatory
planning / scaling / socialist cities
I. INTRODUCTION
Cuba’s new 2019 Constitution and the national guidelines for implementing
the New Urban Agenda (NUA) aim for deepening citizen participation to
strengthen local governance. These emerging decentralization processes,
along with new actors in urban development, open new possibilities for
shaping inclusive citizen participation. The two main documents setting
out the country’s strategic development trajectory, the Conceptualization
of the Cuban Socio-Economic Model and National Plan for Social and Economic
Development to 2030,(1) point to the need to: “Improve democratic participation
at all levels, especially popular control and citizen involvement in the solution of
the problems that affect each territory, work place, or community”, and “achieve
effective social communication, emphasizing its quality and timely access to
public information”.(2) These objectives reiterate a commitment to citizen
participation for advancing Cuba’s socialist society. This commitment,
along with the needed post-pandemic recovery, paves the way to envision
new participatory initiatives shaping the city’s future.
Catalina Ortiz holds a PhD
in Urban Planning and
Policy from the University
of Illinois at Chicago. She
is an associate professor in
the Bartlett Development
Planning Unit, University
College London. Her
research includes the
negotiated co-production
of space in global South
cities around urban design,
strategic spatial planning
and urban policy mobility
practices.
Address: University College
London, 47B Lime Grove,
London WC1E 6BT, UK;
email: catalina.ortiz@ucl.
ac.uk; Twitter: @cataortiza
Alejandro Vallejo is a
research assistant at
the Havana School of
Architecture, Polytechnic
José Antonio Echeverría
(CUJAE). His research
interests include urban
development planning and
city making, with a focus
on urban infrastructure
through an urban equality
lens.
Email: alejandro.vallejo.
delgado@gmail.com;
Twitter: @VallejoDelgadoA
Jorge Peña is a professor
and leader of the Urban
Research and Action Group
at the Havana School of
Architecture, Polytechnic
José Antonio Echeverría
(CUJAE). He holds a
1032570EAU Environment & Urbanization
ENVIRONMENT & URBANIZATION
2
1. Within the framework of
the Seventh Congress of the
Communist Party of Cuba, held
in 2017, the Conceptualization
of the Cuban Socio-Economic
Model and the Bases of the
National Development Plan
for the Country until 2030
were widely discussed across
the country. Within the latter,
The “socialist city”(3) is defined under the premise that a distinctive
mode of production should produce a distinctive form of urbanization.(4)
In this view, Scarpaci, in the same vein as some other authors, argues
that “antiurbanism has manifested itself [as] socialist planning, especially in
the Soviet Union, Vietnam, and Cuba”.(5) Sheppard, meanwhile, contends
that the notion of “socialist cities” fails to encompass the wide array of
urban genealogies and myriad governance.(6) Morris, considering other
former socialist countries, argues that the specific characteristics of the
Cuban case explain why, “despite contradictions and difficulties, it is possible
to incorporate market mechanisms within a state-led development model
with relatively positive results in terms of economic performance and social
outcomes.”(7) These perspectives suggest that the singularities of Havana
make the city worth exploring on its own terms to understand the
dynamics here of urban governance and the role of citizen participation
in urban planning.(8) In the last six decades, the city has grown little
and slowly, leaving untouched – although deteriorated – a unique urban
cultural heritage landscape.
While there is considerable literature on citizen participation in
city-making processes, decentralization and bottom-up strategies in
the global South and under Western liberal democracies,(9) existing
repertoires of participatory urban planning in the context of Southern
socialist cities, such as Havana, have been less scrutinized. This paper
aims to contribute to addressing this gap. Although in Cuba the role of
local governance and popular participation have been well documented,
participatory urban planning initiatives in Havana have received scant
attention. The city has prolific experiences of participation, but there
has been no systematic documentation of its role in the transformation
of urban space. This paper aims to illustrate the framings, trajectories
and legacies of existing participatory planning initiatives, in order to
inform the city’s new challenges. We argue that fostering a city-wide
participatory strategy in Havana requires decision makers to scale
outwards and upwards, building on the lessons learned from existing
citizen engagement initiatives.
We identify a series of diverse and active experiences whose
continuity throughout recent decades constitutes a legacy for Havana,
despite variations in impact and scale. We suggest that a renewed
approach to participatory planning at the city level can be drawn from
the patchwork of coexisting legacies identified below. In keeping with
this textile metaphor, we attempt to weave some of the key learnings
of the framings, trajectories, types and initiatives operating differently
across time, space and scale.
The article is structured in six sections. Following this introduction,
Section II presents the different framings of citizen participation within
Cuban scholarship. Section III describes the methodological approach
taken here in documenting the legacies of participatory initiatives.
Section IV reviews the moments of recalibration, and the types and spatial
patterns of the participatory initiatives in Havana. Section V characterizes
the salient initiatives and their legacies. Section VI discusses the potential
for scaling the patchworked legacies upwards and outwards to inform a
city-level citizen engagement approach. Section VII concludes with some
key summary points and lists further challenges to addressing scaling-up
processes.
doctorate in technical
science from CUJAE. His
research interests include
urban food systems, urban
mobility and heritage
conservation.
Email: jrgpna@gmail.com
Emily Morris is a research
fellow at the Institute of
Americas at University
College London. Her
research focus is on recent
economic history and
contemporary debates
on the political economy
of development, in Latin
America and the Caribbean.
Email: emily.morris@ucl.
ac.uk
Joiselen Cazanave Macías
is a professor of Urban and
Architectural Design and
the dean of the Havana
School of Architecture,
Polytechnic José Antonio
Echeverría (CUJAE). She
holds a doctorate in
technical science from
CUJAE. Her research
interests include urban
mobility and accessibility.
Email: joisecazanave@
gmail.com
Dayané Proenza González
is a professor of Sociology
at the Department of
Sociology, University of
Havana. Her research
explores decentralization
and local governance,
government management,
public finance
management, and more
recently, prosperity and
urban equality. Dayané
holds a PhD in Sociology
from the University of
Havana.
Email: proenzadayane@
gmail.com
MAPPING PARTICIPATORY PLANNING IN HAVANA
3
the strategic axis on “Human
Development, Equity and
Social Justice” states the aim:
“[t]o achieve effective levels
of popular participation in all
the spheres of the economic,
political, social, and cultural
life, as an essential principle to
advance in building a socialist
society”. PCC (2017), page 27.
2. PCC (2017), page 19.
3. This literature brings together
in the same category very
different urban experiences
such as Warsaw, selected
Chinese cities, Ho Chi Minh City
and Havana, inasmuch as they
share some macroeconomic
aspects that have conditioned
national and metropolitan
economies since 1989. Scarpaci
(2000a).
4. Forbes and Thrift (1987); also
Szelenyi (1983, 1996).
5. Scarpaci (2000a), page 663;
Murray and Szelenyi (1984).
6. Sheppard (2000).
7. Morris (2014), page 44.
8. See the seminal piece of
Scarpaci etal. (2002) on 500
years of urban development in
the Cuban capital.
9. Davidoff (1965); Arnstein
(1969); Cabannes (2004);
Roberts (2004).
10. Cornwall and Gaventa
(2000); Miraftab (2004, 2009).
11. Cornwall (2008); Guaraldo
Choguill (1996); Lopes de Souza
(2006).
12. Irazábal (2009); Simone and
Pieterse (2016); Baiocchi and
Gies (2019).
13. Appadurai (2001); Patel etal.
(2001).
14. Mitlin (2008).
15. White (1996); Cornwall and
Brock (2005).
16. Miraftab (2005).
17. Nápoles (2009), page 104.
18. Chaguaceda (2011).
19. Collins (2017), page 17.
20. Valdés Paz (2009); Iglesias
and Jiménez (2017).
21. Valdés Paz (2009), page 15.
22. Valdés Paz (2009).
23. Pontual (2002).
II. FRAMING CUBAN CITIZEN PARTICIPATION
Citizen participation is a historicized notion that can be interpreted in
different ways according to its context. In the global South, participatory
planning has been widely depicted within a discussion of invited and
invented spaces;(10) and several authors have attempted to capture
the spectrum of these spaces using myriad types or degrees of citizen
engagement.(11) On the one hand, it has been widely documented as
an experiment with deliberative planning in ongoing decentralization
processes.(12) On the other hand, this literature has shown the extent to
which urban governmentality is shaped by networks of globalization
from below,(13) most recently moving away from the bottom-up/top-down
dichotomy and focusing on the shift from participation to co-production
of services and knowledge.(14) Importantly, scholars have warned about
the uses and abuses of participation in development processes(15) and
the disempowering effects of neoliberal “empowerment”.(16) Although
this literature brings key insights to an understanding of the benefits,
the contradictions and even the harms that participatory planning can
produce, it has still not fully clarified the ways the Cuban experience
has unfolded. Understanding the role of citizen participation in urban
planning requires not only an understanding of the relationship between
the state and society in Cuba (Figure 1), but also the most salient framings
of the concept of participation itself.
The current Cuban model of participation emerged in the 1960s
within a single-party political system: the Cuban Communist Party
(PCC). A key foundational principle of Cuba’s political and social
project is the promotion of popular participation, central to which is the
“Popular Power” system, which refers to “an intricate network of decision-
making bodies at various levels”.(17) This system has been characterized by
experimentation. Its other key feature is the tension between a vertical
model of central planning(18) and what Collins refers to as a “culture of
localism, conferred by a long history of municipal government and a tradition of
mutual aid and self-reliance”.(19)
Drawing from Cuban scholars and from our study participants (whose
role will be more fully described in the next section on methodology), we
find three interrelated framings for citizen participation in planning. The
first posits that participation should be understood as a goal of a socialist
society, whose highest emancipatory potential relies on self-management
and self-governance.(20) Taking this view, Valdés Paz notes: “Participation is
key and an asset to the Revolution. Political participation meshes with education
to engender knowledge. . . Consequently, democratic participation should not be
conceived as a socialist-transitional strategy; it should be seen as a goal.”(21)
One of our participants noted, in the same vein: “Participation is a learning
process of citizen-building. Nobody is born knowing how to participate: therefore,
it is inherent to a citizen education that needs to start at early ages” (Gina Rey,
academic and long-term champion of participatory planning).
From this perspective, participation is a strategy to galvanize new
social relations that requires the acknowledgement of citizens’ opinions
and the aggregation of their demands and proposals into decision making,
democratic control, and the evaluation of any policy or intervention.(22)
This framing suggests the building of a democratic pedagogy(23) inasmuch
as participation involves, in the words of another participant, “. . .the
ability to physically transform something . . . and includes a psychosocial
ENVIRONMENT & URBANIZATION
4
24. Rey (2007); Linares (1996);
Socarrás (2004); Chaguaceda
(2008).
transformation. People when participating rebuild themselves” (Carlos
García Pleyán, consultant planner). Crucial to this perspective is the
permanent and systematic education of both community actors and local
governments alike.(24) An illustration of this in the context of Havana are
the territorial entities of the neighbourhood councils that channel local
participation at the level of neighbourhood streets and blocks.(25)
FIGURE 1
Cuba’s state–society structure
NOTES:
(1) See Article 5 the 2019 Cuban Constitution which can be found in the Extraordinary Official Gazette No 5,
page 71, 10 April 2019 (GOC-2019-406-EX5). Available at https://www.gacetaoficial.gob.cu/sites/default/files/
goc-2019-ex5_0.pdf.
(2) See the Municipal Assemblies and Neighbourhood Councils Act 132-20 which can be found in the
Extraordinary Official Gazette No 5, pages 59–90, 16 January 2020 (GOC-2020-48-EX5). Available at https://
www.gacetaoficial.gob.cu/sites/default/files/goc-2020-ex5_0.pdf.
(3) See the Provincial Government Act 138-20, and the Municipal Administration Act 139-20 which can be
found in the Ordinary Official Gazette No 14, pages 572–622, 5 February 2021 (GOC-2021-161-O14 and GOC-
2021-163-O14). Available at https://www.gacetaoficial.gob.cu/sites/default/files/goc-2021-o14.pdf.
MAPPING PARTICIPATORY PLANNING IN HAVANA
5
25. Chaguaceda (2011);
Chaguaceda etal. (2012);
Chaguaceda and González
(2015); Martín and Jurado
(2018).
26. Iglesias and Jiménez (2017).
27. Iglesias and Jiménez (2017).
28. Rodríguez Alomá (2009),
pages 92–99.
29. Jiménez etal. (2021), page
218.
30. Alejandro (2004); Díaz
(1998); Dilla and González
(1997).
31. Guzón (2006), quoted in
Nápoles (2009), page 111.
32. Rebellato (2000).
33. Rodríguez Alomá (2009).
34. Nápoles (2009); Linares
(1996); Valdés Paz (1997);
Jiménez etal. (2021).
35. Rey (1995), page 3.
36. Rodríguez Alomá (2009),
pages 92–93.
The second framing states that participation is a prerequisite for
local development.(26) This perspective highlights participation as a
complex process that requires inquiry into the transcendence, levels,
objective, subject and object of participatory processes.(27) That is why
nowadays the constitutional call for decentralization is linked to the
refinement of participatory mechanisms. According to Rodríguez Alomá,
“. . .the possibility of citizen participation will be more viable when the
administration is more decentralized.”(28) Similarly, Jiménez and colleagues
note: “The deepening towards territorial decentralization needs to favour
municipal autonomy for the planning and management of local development.
This becomes a key element to achieve the enhancement of an effective social
participation.”(29)
In this framing, participation refers to devolving the control over
the conception and implementation of decision making in planning.(30)
As one participant puts it, “participation goes with power, the distribution
and access to power and the decision making, that is something that needs to
be managed” (Ailena Alberto, NGO representative). Notwithstanding the
intricate network of participation in decision-making bodies at various
levels within the Popular Power system, Guzón identifies “a disarticulation
between planning processes or the structures of coordination at the heart of
the system and an inadequate definition of enterprise-community relations”.(31)
In that view, participant Gina Rey notes, “participation is a process of
pushing back against power”, and Rebellato sees it as a territory of ethical
contradictions.(32) This framing refers to a perspective of vertical inclusion
from the national to the local state and from the local state to the citizens.
An illustration in the context of Havana is the Plan Maestro office in the
historic centre (Section Vb addresses this case).
The third framing sees participation as co-responsibility and social
inclusion of the plurality of actors and vulnerable populations.(33) This
approach envisions processes of participation as the ensemble of actions
and communicative practices deployed by multiple levels and multiple
stakeholders for the integration of economic and social actors in the
construction of a social project.(34) This is illustrated by the statements of
two of the most notable female planners in Havana. According to Rey in
1995:
“With the acceleration of the economic crisis in Cuba, the Group for
the Comprehensive Development of the Capital [GDIC] has become
deeply engaged in the elaboration of a strategic plan for Havana to
combat the negative effects of the crisis. Its work incorporates the
participation of universities, urban planning institutions, scientists,
NGOs, businesses and local governmental representatives.”(35)
More recently, Rodríguez Alomá notes,
“Residents shall pass from a passive posture to an active one
inasmuch as they know deeply their rights and duties. . .they
are the most complex actor given their diversity. . .that is why, it
requires a policy of social inclusion, that understands the citizen
as protagonist of the cultural sphere and with the full right to
universal access to cultural services as means and option to improve
their quality of life.”(36)
ENVIRONMENT & URBANIZATION
6
37. Hansing and Hoffmann
(2020).
38. Jiménez etal. (2021).
39. a) Actors: Involves the
definition of lead organizations,
institutional and personal
This framing acknowledges the existing social differentiation,
inequalities and barriers to citizen inclusion in planning as well as
the social response to crisis. Hansing and Hoffmann argue that an in-
depth social restratification has taken place in Cuba, with Afro-Cubans
as a group having lower incomes than whites.(37) Along the same lines,
Jiménez and colleagues, in a systematic assessment of citizen participation
and equality between 2008 and 2018, assert that youth and women
experienced more obstacles to engagement in participatory processes.(38)
These analyses suggest the need to attune participation strategies to
address the asymmetries of social diversity and its impact on planning
the future of the city. This framing suggests a more horizontal inclusion,
where local governance is only possible through alliances with different
actors and addressing the diversity of social identities. An illustration of
this in the context of Havana is the talleres de transformación integral del
barrio (comprehensive neighbourhood transformation workshops, TTIBs
– Section Va addresses this case).
III. METHODOLOGY
We devised a three-phase methodology for data collection in order to
answer the question: How does citizen participation in planning operate in
Havana? The first phase entailed a collaborative workshop with multiple
urban practitioners; the second involved a set of semi-structured
interviews with key informants; and the third a desk review of secondary
data to triangulate the main findings and distinguish the main conceptual
framings of citizen participation in Cuba. The workshop brought together
a collaborative multi-generational, interdisciplinary and multi-agency
group of 19 participants to exchange knowledge on the participatory
initiatives in Havana. The workshop was conducted over a two-day
session in June 2017, and included urban scholars, NGO representatives,
local and national government officials, UN-Habitat consultants and
architecture students.
In the first day’s session, the workshop started with the use of basic
tools to guide an incremental, flexible process of interaction with the
participants. Small groups discussed participatory planning initiatives at
both the national and city levels. An inventory of participatory initiatives
was composed of maps and diagrams, which revealed how these projects
emerged and were concentrated in time and space. This process allowed
us to identify not only the types of initiatives based on scale and the lead
organization, but also the emergence of initiatives and their patterns of
continuity and disruption.
In the second day’s session, participants selected initiatives to
illustrate different types of initiative, and formulated a systematic analysis
of their legacies and potentials. The initiatives selected were recognized as
paradigmatic to different degrees: some had impacts in both the physical
and social spheres; some had historical continuity and remain active,
despite adapting to recalibration. We agreed to analyse four variables to
understand the enabling conditions of each initiative and their lessons:
actors, resource management, knowledge and information management,
and regulatory frameworks.(39)
In the second phase, as part of our fieldwork, in November 2017
we visited some sites where the selected initiatives had been deployed,
MAPPING PARTICIPATORY PLANNING IN HAVANA
7
alliances that sustain the
initiative, and the participants
involved, to galvanize collective
action;
b) Resource management:
Involves not only the funding
strategies but the endogenous
resources that include human,
social and cultural assets,
and the residents’ innovation
capacity [see Rey (2015)];
c) Knowledge and information
management: Involves the
approaches and methods
to bridge the “professional
knowledge” with citizens’
knowledge and experiences,
as well as the ways in which
the urban data are understood,
mobilized and archived for
decision-making purposes;
d) Regulatory framework:
Involves the state architecture
for decision making, i.e. the
regulatory tools that have
propelled and hindered the
citizen engagement in planning
processes according to the
different competencies,
jurisdictions and degrees
of institutionalization of the
initiatives.
40. A detailed appraisal of the
special period is described in
Tulchin etal. (2005).
41. Padrón etal. (2013),
page18.
42. Uriarte (2002), page 47;
Martín and Jurado (2018).
including Cayo Hueso, Centro Habana and Artecorte. We also used
semi-structured interviews with six key informants overall who were
championing the selected initiatives, to deepen an understanding
of the context and operation of the initiatives. Finally, in phase three
we deepened our understanding of Cuban citizen participation and
triangulated the findings with local and international secondary data.
This study is restricted in scope – limited resources meant we could not
conduct research on the other initiatives identified and make wider
comparisons. We could have missed relevant experiences from other
examples in our inventory, and participants were aware of this. Therefore,
the collaborative mapping process should be considered a preliminary
overview rather than a geographically exact picture or comprehensive
account of all the initiatives.
IV. MAPPING TRAJECTORIES OF URBAN PARTICIPATORY
PROCESSES
In Cuba, the trajectories of citizen participation in urban planning
have been shaped by several recalibration moments. These moments
are understood as broader socioeconomic, political, constitutional or
geopolitical changes driving major measures to contain, adapt or upgrade
the Cuban political, economic and/or social model, in which participation
was used to seek legitimacy of those processes. Moments of recalibration
have included:
The 1959 Revolution, when spatial practices were implemented
to reduce rural–urban disparities and socio-spatial inequalities in
securing access to the basic resources of social reproduction.
The 1976 enactment of the socialist Constitution, another milestone,
where the “People’s Power” system was introduced to fill the existing
gap in popular participation in decision-making processes, which
remained highly centralized and lacking in citizen participation in
urban planning.
The 1990s socioeconomic crisis following the collapse of the socialist
bloc, called the “special period”,(40) when austerity measures were
adopted, and decentralization processes started the “planning
municipalization”.(41) This was intended to allow community
participation in the planning process and to establish neighbourhood
councils to connect municipalities and neighbourhoods.(42)
The suspension of decentralization in the 2000s, when the economy
stabilized and Cuba and Venezuela became allies.
The updating of the socioeconomic model in 2011, when a partial
opening to private entrepreneurship was observed.
The current moment of recalibration, marked by the 2019
Constitution’s approval of the role of local governments regarding
citizen participation.
Most recently the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
We find participatory initiatives to have varied in their degree of
consolidation and geographical impact. Participatory processes have
been mostly concentrated at the national and neighbourhood levels,
with fewer new initiatives at the municipal level and no participatory
ENVIRONMENT & URBANIZATION
8
urban planning initiatives at the whole-city level. We identified six
types of initiatives in the preliminary inventory, based on the scale of
the lead organizations, the administrative location of the initiatives’
implementation, and, when further detail was required, the lead
organizations themselves (Figure 2).
a) National-level initiatives applied throughout the country
include the attempts at citizen participation driven by the central
government organizations. These initiatives are varied; some are
attempts to achieve political legitimacy through citizen mobilization,
e.g. public hearings and national debates on programmatic
documents; others are focused on the built environment, e.g. the
Microbrigadas, Community Architect Programme and Network of
Historic Centres.
FIGURE 2
Timeline of citizen participation initiatives across administrative levels
NOTES:
UR – United Nation Development Programme’s project on urban resilience.
MT – Multidisciplinary teams.
SDC GEPAC – SDC’s project on the participatory management of the historic centre.
San Isidro TRIB – San Isidro Comprehensive Neighbourhood Rehabilitation Workshop.
Habitat 2 – SDC’s project on implementing strategies for habitat local management at municipal level based
at Central University of Las Villas.
Habitat-Cuba – NGO engaged in technical assistance on self-help housing in low-income neighbourhoods.
MAPPING PARTICIPATORY PLANNING IN HAVANA
9
43. Gold (2011) contends that
the concept of Cuban civil
society is contested. One group
views civil society in Cuba as
not detached from the state
– therefore, not acting against
the state as a democratizing
power, like in other countries.
Another group argues there
is no civil society, but just
enabling mechanisms in place
for their formation. The state,
through the Ministry of Foreign
Investment and Economic
Cooperation, “approves and
conditions the relationships
between Cuban and foreign
NGOs” (page 53), and Cuban
NGOs are closely monitored
b) Multilateral-level initiatives applied in selected cities
emerged from the international development agenda (mostly at UN
conferences and summits), and were implemented on a temporary
basis as pilot projects in selected Cuban cities by Cuban designated
agencies, sponsored by UN agencies. UN-Habitat’s Localizing Agenda
21 and the Programme of Local Human Development are illustrations
of such initiatives.
c) City-level initiatives applied in a special territorial
jurisdiction have only one case: the consolidated Office of the City
Historian (OCH), its Plan Maestro, and the participatory initiatives
related to this office. This particular case extends beyond the
municipality, reaching several areas of the city (see Section Vb), and
it includes special facilities related to its regulatory framework.
d) City-level initiatives applied in selected neighbourhoods
comprise an innovative group of initiatives established by city-level
organizations, e.g. the Group for the Comprehensive Development of
the Capital (GDIC). The paradigmatic case of the talleres (see Section
Va) operate at the neighbourhood level.
e) Community-level initiatives led by civil society
organizations, in this case NGOs, have played a significant role
as champions of existing initiatives, mostly by mobilizing resources
and increasing the capacity building within these existing initiatives.
The Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Centre, CIERIC and the Antonio
Núñez Jiménez Foundation were considered the best initiatives
supporting existing efforts.
f) Street-level initiatives led by cuentapropistas or artistic
collectives include initiatives by individual artists linked to the
cultural landscape who use their own resources to establish their
projects, with varying degrees of participation from local institutions
or members of the community. Examples of these initiatives are
Artecorte (one of the cases described in the next section), San Agustin
Artistic Lab and Kcho Studio.
These initiatives have some cross-cutting characteristics. Their aim
is “holistic” rather than thematic; they are experimental, searching
continuously for innovation; and they respond to moments of
recalibration. Although the majority of these identified initiatives are
state-led, NGOs(43) have also played a significant cultural role in shaping
citizen engagement across scales. For instance, the Martin Luther King Jr
Memorial Centre has developed an interesting bridge between popular
education and liberation theology;(44) CIERIC has focused on territorial
and culture-based community development projects;(45) and the Antonio
Núñez Jiménez Foundation has focused on environmental education
and urban agriculture based on permaculture principles.(46) These
organizations have developed innovative methodologies to foster self-
management and culture-based empowerment locally, while maintaining
an active relationship with international cooperation actors.
Participatory initiatives are unevenly distributed across the city.
Most of these initiatives are concentrated in the historic centre and
along the coastal strip up to the Almendares River; the remainder are
dispersed throughout the city, although they are relatively absent or
ephemeral in some of the more peripheral municipalities (Figure 3). The
neighbourhoods that have not been addressed are arguably some of those
ENVIRONMENT & URBANIZATION
10
by the state through budget
planning and expenditure
control.
44. Friedman (2012).
45. Kennedy etal. (2003).
46. Gold (2011) explains
that urban agriculture is
considered, together with the
achievements in health and
education, a success of the
revolution. The revolution is
linked to the urban agriculture
movement because although
at the start agriculture was a
means of survival initiated by
individuals, “it did not take long
for the government to realise
the potential of local food
that most need interventions – San Miguel del Padrón,(47) for instance,
where indicators for living standards are below those in the rest of the
city; or Havana Bay,(48) which is under high pressure for transformation.
Given the importance of decisions about the development of the Havana
Bay area for the future of the city as a whole, this area may deserve further
investigation and analysis. In sum, we find that participatory initiatives
within Havana are spatially dispersed, short lived, sparse at the city level
and occurring mostly in isolation at the neighbourhood level.
V. TRACING LEGACIES OF CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IN PLANNING
After mapping the participatory initiatives temporally and spatially,
we identified a couple of key milestones within a longer tradition of
participatory urban governance in Cuba, stemming from the 1970s, that
FIGURE 3
Map of participatory planning initiatives in Havana
NOTES:
ZPC – Prioritized Zone for Heritage Conservation.
MLKMC – Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Centre.
FANJ – Antonio Núñez Jiménez Foundation.
MAPPING PARTICIPATORY PLANNING IN HAVANA
11
production, and appropriate
the initiatives of urban
gardeners” (page 48). The state
promotes this mass movement
that provides food security
and creates jobs, linking it to
its public health system. For
instance, the Movimiento de
Patios y Parcelas (Movement
of Patios and Plots), which
carried out a census of existing
gardens, was created in 2000
by the Ministry of Agriculture to
promote urban agriculture, but
also to take control over it.
47. San Miguel del Padrón,
located on the south side
of Havana, is a municipality
dating back to the 17th century
that was unpopulated in the
1940s and now has more than
150,000 inhabitants, many of
whom are migrants living in
informal settlements.
48. Most of the oldest buildings
and infrastructure, the earliest
of which date back to the
late 15th century, are around
Havana Bay in the Habana
Vieja (Old Havana) and Regla
municipalities. From there,
the city grew outwards, with
the latest major expansion in
La Habana del Este since the
completion of a tunnel under
the bay in the late 1950s.
49. The Microbrigadas
movement initiated in the
1970s arose to relieve the
existing housing problems.
The units built by 30,000
Microbrigadistas were allegedly
distributed according to needs
and merit among the workers
at their own workplace,
reaching 82,000 dwellings
in 1978, many in the form
of satellite cities around the
capital. Mathey (1989a); Segre
(1984).
50. La Güinera is an informal
low-income settlement located
on the outskirts of Havana,
where in 1987 a women-led
community-driven initiative
was started to plan and build
their own houses. This shows
not only the participatory
approach, but women’s
empowerment since this
early period. See Coyula and
Hamberg (2003).
51. Mathey (1989b).
52. Moya (2020).
53. Jiménez etal. (2021).
are worthy of mention: Microbrigadas(49) and the La Güinera project.(50)
While the former operated under a logic of collective self-help housing,(51)
the latter worked within the framework of participatory action research
and popular education, focused on the collective construction of
knowledge and a critical reflection of the praxis.(52) Both of these
precursors underscore the active role of both national-level policy and
neighbourhood-level organization as the basis of community work and
direct citizen engagement. The following three “legacy” cases, which
have benefitted from both of these earlier experiences, illustrate different
types of participatory initiatives, and inform the legacies and potential of
different approaches to scaling upwards and outwards.
a. Talleres de transformación integral del barrio (comprehensive
neighbourhood transformation workshops)
The talleres are an example of a city-level initiative applied in selected
neighbourhoods. This initiative is considered in Cuba a paradigm
for community development and unique in its theoretical and
methodological contribution.(53) This initiative is rather influenced by
the framing of participation as a learning process as well as a tool for
including vulnerable populations in the planning process. Established
in 1988, the talleres were first created in three low-income marginalized
neighbourhoods in the city of Havana: Cayo Hueso and Atarés, inner-city
neighbourhoods, and La Güinera, a peripheral informal settlement. More
talleres were gradually created in low-income neighbourhoods, reaching
20 by the mid-2000s (Table 1). The talleres’ aim was the community’s
physical, social and environmental transformation, undertaken in
conjunction with municipal government and neighbourhood councils.(54)
Local interdisciplinary teams were composed of around six professionals,
mainly from the neighbourhood itself, with different backgrounds that
included sociology, psychology, history, education, economy, geography,
ecology, architecture and engineering. Applying the GDIC’s “strategic
community planning” methodology, local teams engaged residents
in all stages of the process, starting from diagnosis and the strategic
selection of priority actions, and continuing on through the design of
the plan, the implementation of the actions and, finally, the evaluation
of each intervention and the measurement of citizens’ satisfaction.(55)
The methodology aimed to reach out and involve all possible actors
in the participatory process. The talleres’ work focused on training and
capacity building; the needs of children and older adults; and cultural,
environmental and gender-related programmes and projects.(56) The
talleres’ staff provided training to the people involved in the planning
process and in some cases, in community-based health interventions.(57)
Table 1 shows a detailed list of the work developed in each taller.
The talleres built alliances with many actors to strengthen their
operations and address some gaps affecting their work. These actors
included formal and informal community leaders and representatives
from GDIC, neighbourhood councils, local governments, political
and mass organizations,(58) universities, national and international
NGOs, and international cooperation agencies.(59) Because the talleres
had no communication strategy, they depended on alliances with the
representatives of mass organizations to carry out social mobilization;
ENVIRONMENT & URBANIZATION
12
TABLE 1
Talleres’ impacted population and strategic focus
Taller name Municipality Taller
foundation
date
Initial
population
(inhabitants)(a)
Current
population
(inhabitants)(b)
Strategic actions
Pilar-Atarés Cerro 1988 37,600 19,397 Ciudadela(c) upgrading, older
adults’ social work for training in
traditional trades, social work with
youths in basic informatics, music
and crafts
Cayo Hueso Centro
Habana
1988 23,200 34,171 Ciudadela upgrading, social work
at the Women’s Self-Esteem
Workshop, tradition preservation
and socio-cultural development at
the community centre
La Güinera Arroyo
Naranjo
1988 24,000 15,035 Children’s and youth’s
environmental education,
recycling, urban transformation,
socio-cultural development at the
community centre
Pocitos-
Palmar
Marianao 1989 28,400 24,997 Preventive health education, socio-
cultural and educational work, and
housing repairs
Pogolotti Marianao 1990 22,700 26,655 Preservation of cultural traditions,
housing construction, support to
Metropolitan Park development,
social work with older adults and
youths
Zamora-
Cocosolo
Marianao 1990 35,600 32,083 Ciudadela upgrading, socio-cultural
and sports work with children and
youth
Santa
Felicia
Marianao 1990 17,700 14,383 Socio-cultural and educational
work with children and youth,
tradition preservation, housing
repair
Alamar-
Playa
Habana del
Este
1990 28,600 11,380 Fostering a sense of community
and place attachment,
infrastructure provision, socio-
cultural work
Los Angeles Marianao 1996 14,600 14,145 Tradition preservation,
socio-cultural development,
environmental education, urban
transformation, social work with
children, youth and older adults
Libertad Marianao 1996 22,300 24,029 Community sanitation and
environmental education,
cultural promotion, integration of
community actors
Príncipe Plaza 1996 23,600 15,762 Socio-cultural work and
preparation for urban intervention
El Canal Cerro 1996 20,700 15,061 Tradition preservation, socio-
cultural and educational work, care
for disabled people
MAPPING PARTICIPATORY PLANNING IN HAVANA
13
54. Ramirez (2005).
55. Oliveras etal. (2007).
56. For a whole list of
programmes and projects see
Rey (2013).
57. Spiegel etal. (2001); Yassi
etal. (2003); Spiegel etal.
(2004).
they also relied on citizens informally mobilizing themselves, mostly
led by women, via word of mouth.(60) Furthermore, they had alliances
with NGOs and international cooperation agencies to mobilize resources
internationally, and with universities and national NGOs to provide
training and capacity building to the community and the talleres’ staff.(61)
In the late 1990s, the social relevance of this initiative and its innovations
were the focus of four annual workshops that gathered Cuban urban
sociologists to discuss participatory urban development experiences.(62)
Taller name Municipality Taller
foundation
date
Initial
population
(inhabitants)(a)
Current
population
(inhabitants)(b)
Strategic actions
La Ceiba-
Kohly
Playa 1998 28,700 22,644 Tradition preservation, socio-
cultural work with children and
youth, integration of community
actors
Buenavista Playa 1998 31,200 22,374 Public space rescue, socio-cultural
work with children and youth,
integration of community actors
Alamar Este Habana del
Este
1998 35,800 27,553 Socio-cultural work with
children and youth, fostering a
sense of community and place
attachment, community research
(investigaciones comunitarias),
work with disabled people and
older adults
Párraga Arroyo
Naranjo
1998 21,100 14,541 Socio-cultural actions with children
and youth, social prevention,
tradition preservation
Balcón de
La Lisa-
Arimao
La Lisa 1998 17,300 20,188 Socio-cultural actions with children
and youth and preventive health
education
Vedado-
Malecón
Plaza 1998 21,000 14,213 Preservation of traditions and
historical values, care for older
adults
Cubanacán-
Náutico
Playa 1998 13,900 18,209 Socio-cultural actions in informal
settlements
Jesús María Habana
Vieja
2000 30,355 29,263 Housing upgrading, environmental
sanitation
NOTES:
(a)Population at the time of each TTIB foundation.
(b)Population in 2016 (last version available) consulted in ONEI (2016), Statistics Yearbooks of several Havana
municipalities, Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas e Información, Havana.
(c)A ciudadela is historic building transformed into a tenement with several rooms that function as housing
units, and limited access to kitchens and sanitary services.
SOURCE: Oliveras, Rosa (2008), “Veinte años de esfuerzos”, Carta de La Habana: Boletín del Grupo para el
Desarrollo Integral de la Capital Vol 14, No 43, with updated information supplied and translated by the authors.
TABLE 1 (Continued)
ENVIRONMENT & URBANIZATION
14
58. Mass organizations are
characterized by massive
membership and social
mobilization capacity, and
are considered contested
members of civil society, which
include the Committees for
the Defence of the Revolution
(CDR), the Federation of Cuban
Women (FMC), the Cuban
Labour Union (CTC) and the
National Association of Small
Farmers (ANAP).
59. Ramirez (2009).
60. Fernandez (2003).
61. For a wider discussion of
actors see Rey (2013).
62. These are the proceedings
of the four Talleres de
Desarrollo Urbano y
Participación (Urban
Development and Participation
Annual Workshops): Vázquez
and Dávalos (1996); Vázquez
and Dávalos (1997); Dávalos
(1998); and Dávalos and
Hernández (1999).
63. Chaguaceda (2011).
64. Fernandez and Angeles
(2009).
65. A governmental project,
commonly known as Plan
Cayo Hueso, sought to repair
and rehabilitate most of the
housing and infrastructure
in that neighbourhood, but
sometimes this was only for
cosmetic purposes.
66. The scope of international
cooperation influenced
the sustainability of its
contributions. In some cases,
international cooperation
agencies implemented projects
that were restricted in time
and scope, scarcely achieving
a few outcomes. In other
cases, national NGOs have
worked with the talleres to
raise funds from international
aid, achieving better outcomes
than the talleres alone. On this
basis, NGOs were catalysers
of funds for the talleres.
Oxfam-Canada, UNICEF,
Norwegian People’s Aid and
European Official Development
Assistance have been the main
funders.
67. Further detail on social
transformation in Cayo Hueso
is in Fernandez (2003); and on
environmental transformation
Financial resource constraints have been constant since the talleres
began and became critical during the 1990s economic crisis.(63) This
meant that physical transformations were extremely limited and the focus
was reoriented towards social and environmental transformations.(64)
The physical aspects could only be partially addressed through state-
led projects(65) and through international cooperation.(66) The daily
lives of the talleres’ staff and activities have relied on the municipal
budget. Meanwhile, endogenous resources have partially made up for
the financial resource limitations and have supported the social and
environmental transformations.(67) These assets have been rooted in
community networks, and have included women’s and men’s time,
capacity, place attachment and sense of community; NGOs engaged
with the talleres’ work and the very existence of the talleres as collective
space.
The talleres are not endorsed by any legislation, and hence have
no legal status, but are subject to municipal government jurisdiction.
Chaguaceda’s assessment of the talleres suggested that “the state played
a contradictory role, providing material resources and support to the personnel
while blocking legal recognition and the consolidation of self-management
in the popular economy, and trying to co-opt local productive initiatives”.(68)
Nonetheless, an important spatial intervention has been the creation of
community centres in the neighbourhoods, functioning both as places
to socialize and as the talleres’ headquarters.(69) This community centre
initiative has been scaled out to other low-income neighbourhoods
throughout the city.(70)
b. Plan Maestro (Master Plan of the Office of the
City Historian)
Plan Maestro, the name of the department within the Office of the
City Historian (OCH) in charge of the Master Plan for Comprehensive
Rehabilitation of Old Havana,(71) is the sole example of a city-level
initiative applied in a special territorial jurisdiction. This is a unique case,
developed as an experiment in participatory planning for comprehensive
community development in the context of heritage rehabilitation. It was
rather influenced by the framing of participation as vertical inclusion in
decision-making processes, working for co-responsibility of the range of
actors in the territory. After Old Havana(72) and its fortification system
were acknowledged as a national monument in 1978, and as a UNESCO
World Heritage site in 1982 led by the OCH, the Plan Maestro office was
established in 1994 as a planning unit to preserve the exceptional value of
the place. The UNESCO designation of Old Havana and the international
prestige of OCH, led by Eusebio Leal Spengler,(73) provided national
and international political legitimacy for this historic preservation.(74)
The Plan Maestro was established based on an understanding that the
historic centre encapsulated tangible and intangible heritage that it was
important to preserve, but also that this could activate the aspirations
and imaginaries of its inhabitants. Learning from this experience, we
found that the greatest concentration of participatory initiatives was
in the historic centre (Figure 4), the most recent ones being the public
consultation (2011–2016) on the current plan, and the pilot project for
participatory budgeting (2014–2017).
MAPPING PARTICIPATORY PLANNING IN HAVANA
15
in Anguelovski (2014); also see
Anguelovski (2013).
68. Chaguaceda (2011),
page 24.
69. For example, in the Cayo
Hueso neighbourhood, three
community centres were
founded, targeting different
social groups: namely, Casa
del Niño y La Niña (children),
Casa Comunitaria San José
(women and older adults), and
Casa Comunitaria San Miguel
(young adults). See the detailed
community centre description
in Fernandez (2003); and Rey
(2013).
70. Fernandez (2003).
71. The Office of the City
Historian was founded by Dr
Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring in
1938, during his tenure as the
city historian, a position he had
held since 1925. In 1967, on
Roig’s death, Dr Eusebio Leal
The Plan Maestro developed a community development planning
framework, supported by a census to produce its own data about
people’s priorities and the most critically threatened built heritage.
Based on this process, the Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP)
was launched in 1998, paving the way for the institutionalization of
subsequent citizen participation in planning, and breaking with any
preconceived planning practice and discourse in Havana at the time. This
plan provided mechanisms for accessing information and consultation
for decision making, and an ideas bank for potential projects and their
implementation was co-produced by planners and citizens.(75) The CDP
allowed for resident participation in self-build schemes, but had a limited
impact on decision making.
The next plan was drafted in 2011 under Rodríguez Alomá’s “TESIS”
methodology,(76) adopting its current name – the Special Comprehensive
Development Plan (SCDP) – and confirming its participatory essence
when a wide-scale public consultation with citizens and institutions
was held for the modification of the plan. This public consultation
was an initial step in involving the whole municipality, through social
mobilization by mass organizations in all neighbourhood councils and
through an advertising campaign using the OCH’s media department and
local media. This participatory planning initiative included 23 workshops
FIGURE 4
Map of participatory planning initiatives in Old Havana and Havana Centre
ENVIRONMENT & URBANIZATION
16
Spengler took over the position
to continue Roig’s legacy of
heritage preservation and
conservation until 2020, when
he passed away.
72. Old Havana has a
population of 85,000
inhabitants, an area of 437
hectares, and a population
density of 193 people per
hectare.
73. Eusebio Leal was described
as follows: “as director of the
Office of the Historian [sic],
Leal is simultaneously the city’s
master planner, developer,
chief architect, C.E.O [sic],
publicist, preservation officer,
social service coordinator, and
historian”. Medina Lasansky
(2004), page 169.
74. Scarpaci (2000b).
75. Pérez and Iglesias (2014).
76. Rodríguez Alomá’s
(2009) “TESIS” methodology
evaluates historic centres’
rehabilitation actions through
multidimensional indicators,
placing governability and
sustainability at the core of
them.
77. Old Havana’s cultural
heritage, Havana Bay
landscape and natural
environment, along with its
centrality, national identity and
well-formed human capital, all
together are the true initiators
of the OCH’s work. The OCH
put in practice what Gina Rey
(2015) called “valuing heritage”,
restoring its former glory to
urban and building heritage,
which became assets in these
processes, and preserving
historic memory, cultural
traditions and folklore for
present and future generations.
78. The OCH created
organizations to support its
heritage conservation and
preservation works, addressing
the Cuban opening up in
the 1990s economic crisis,
i.e. tourism, foreign direct
investment and US dollar
legalization. In doing so, the
OCH founded Habaguanex
S.A. (tourism, services and
retail commerce), Fénix S.A.
(real estate), San Cristobal S.A.
(travel agency) and Puerto
Carenas Construction Co.
(construction). Also, the OCH
deployed funding mechanisms
with 637 participants (201 of whom were officials and civil servants, the
remainder being citizens). It also served as a learning process for both the
Plan Maestro and citizens, allowing Plan Maestro members to familiarize
themselves with the methodological and organizational aspects for future
processes, such as establishing a permanent public consultation called
Opening Spaces, a more recent experience with knowledge co-production.
Its territorial financial autonomy makes Old Havana a special
jurisdiction with unique internal resources.(77) Law Decree 143-93
enabled the OCH to enter into profitable commercial activities(78) and
to control its own finances in carrying out its heritage preservation
functions.(79) It became a self-financing agency and contributed to the
national budget through taxation rather than relying on state grants. This
made it what Monreal called “the most powerful local public corporation
in Cuba”.(80) The OCH has three income sources, descending by size of
revenues: businesses, the “restoration contribution” tax and international
cooperation. The “restoration contribution” tax is a unique prerogative
for Cuba, allowing the OCH to retain and allocate 100 per cent of the
taxes collected.(81) International cooperation agencies were among the
first donors to heritage preservation, and this support has been stable
over recent years. This process has supported the rehabilitation of a third
of the buildings in the OCH’s domain in the last 20 years, mainly those
located in plazas(82) and along commercial corridors.(83) More recently,
the first participatory budgeting in Cuba was tested, funded by the Swiss
Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and carried out by the
OCH with the municipal government’s support.(84) This suggests that it
might be useful to explore the possibility of experimenting with greater
revenue retention and autonomy in other neighbourhoods.
The OCH mandate and strong regulatory framework allow it to interact
with actors in a sui generis and multilevel fashion that extends from
grassroots citizens to United Nations organizations. The OCH’s network of
actors also includes those at both the national(85) and provincial levels,(86)
and at the local level it interacts with all governmental bodies, mass and
political organizations, universities and NGOs. In its joint work with the
Old Havana municipal government,(87) the two bodies pursue different
agendas but share tasks and support each other.(88) In addition, the OCH
works closely with the NGO SPCMA (Sociedad Patrimonio, Comunidad
y Medio Ambiente) founded by OCH staff to support its socio-cultural
programme.
c. Artecorte
Artecorte is an example of a street-level initiative led by cuentapropistas,(89)
or artistic collectives. This initiative, although sui generis, can be linked
to the framing of participation as a learning process and as a platform that
aims to lead to self-management. It could be considered a comprehensive
community development initiative focused on entrepreneurial
solidarity.(90) Started in 1999 by an informal leader, a barber named
Gilberto Valladares (aka Papito) in the Santo Ángel neighbourhood, north
of the historic centre, the project sought to train dropout youngsters in
hairdressing and hospitality skills and to create job opportunities within
the area or in the rest of the city. He decided to dignify the barber and
hairdresser professions by creating a living museum displaying their
MAPPING PARTICIPATORY PLANNING IN HAVANA
17
for partially funded self-help
housing.
79. Toft (2011).
80. Monreal (2010), page 21.
81. In 2008 alone this tax
reached a gross total of US$
27.4 million.
82. Fornet (2011).
83. Revenues from OCH’s
businesses reached more
than US$ 330 million in
2008 (last available source)
in net value, and a major
part of this was allocated to
heritage preservation and
social investments. A full
financial report on revenues,
expenditures and allocations
can be found at http://www.
planmaestro.ohc.cu/index.php/
gestion-del-plan/gestion.
84. Andino (2015).
85. The OCH has collaborated
closely with the Cuban Ministry
of Culture, because of its aim
of heritage preservation and
conservation.
86. The Havana Department of
Physical Planning approves the
OCH’s proposed plans.
87. The municipality receives
income from tax collection,
and its expenditures are used
to cover public services and
public administration. On the
other hand, the OCH’s public
administration functions cover
a wide network of museums
and cultural centres, some
public services, and the
bulk of the construction and
maintenance activity.
88. Rey and Vinci (2005).
89. Argaillot (2020) refers to
cuentapropismo as self-
employment in businesses
that were recognized and
propelled legally by Raúl Castro
(2008–2018). These economic
activities also imply an urban
space reorganization given the
emergence of new commercial
spaces in former residential
spaces, as well as a shift in
many domestic spaces now
adapted to house economic
activities.
90. Henken (2018).
91. Valdés and D’Angelo (2018).
92. An ethic of collaboration, in
this context, means fostering
new businesses in the same
street rather than competition,
traditional paraphernalia. The idea was to show the social relevance of the
know-how that had contributed to the cultural and historic reactivation
of the vicinity. In 2009, in conjunction with the City Historian, the
aims of the project were expanded to reach a more holistic engagement
for community transformation, including the physical upgrading of
public space and housing, along with capacity building and a focus on
entrepreneurship. Artecorte has been described as a social innovation
initiative involving small businesses and community development
approaches.(91) According to Henken, it merges
“(1) economic development (via private entrepreneurship as
a licensed cuentapropista) with (2) social responsibility (via a
variety of community development initiatives) and (3) cultural
preservation (through an important alliance with the Office of the
City Historian). Artecorte embraces an ethic of [collaboration] over
competition,(92) combining bottom-line-oriented private enterprise
with neighborhood uplift, community outreach, and collaborative
synergy—alternately independent from or in sync (and occasional
partnership) with the government’s “party line”.”(93)
Artecorte’s operation strengthened the thick network of neighbouring
relations and densified the linkages among neighbours to cultivate a sense
of community.(94) Neighbours, rather than acting as mere passive subjects
benefitting from the upgrading of public and private spaces, participated
in the decision-making and implementation processes. Community
transformation required a funding scheme, which in this case was a sort
of self-organized savings called a “collection box” where neighbours –
mainly private entrepreneurs – contributed to their own saving capacity,
and neighbours collectively decided upon the allocation of these
savings. Furthermore, Artecorte has carried out several meetings for the
management of the Santo Ángel neighbourhood, supported by the Plan
Maestro’s methodological guidance, where the main purpose is to achieve
participatory and comprehensive neighbourhood management.(95)
Artecorte has developed a strategy of intersectoral alliances and
support networks as forms of social innovation.(96) The main actors
involved are the private entrepreneur community – small businesses(97)
in the Callejón de los Peluqueros – with people from the community,(98)
the OCH and national-level institutions.(99) Artecorte had built a
strategic alliance with the OCH because the OCH represents the local
development authority jointly with the municipal government, and is
the approval office for operational licences to cuentapropistas.(100) Many
proposed projects have the endorsement of the OCH, which has helped
them with resources or technical assistance, and donations to Artecorte
can be channelled through the OCH’s Department for International
Cooperation.(101) Artecorte has also developed alliances with state-owned
enterprises such as Habaguanex, San Cristobal, SELECMAR and Havana
Club to foster the creation of job opportunities in the hospitality sector,
and has hence also served the purpose of livelihood generation. In
addition, Artecorte has established alliances with universities, which have
provided pro-rata technical support and capacity building to bridge the
gaps in entrepreneurship, and other enterprise-related affairs.
While the OCH is regulated under Law Decree 143-93, according
to Henken, Artecorte’s participants “are simply a group of people working
ENVIRONMENT & URBANIZATION
18
promoting other values such as
solidarity and cohesion.
93. Henken (2019), page 1.
94. Ibarrola (2018).
95. Iglesias (2019).
96. Valdés and D’Angelo (2018).
97. The small businesses – six
restaurants, three art galleries,
one coffee shop and a craft
stand – contribute to the costs
and knowledge to upgrade the
local area and reach out to
local families.
98. This initiative particularly
empowered women, cared
for older adults, worked
with children and youth, and
supported disabled people.
99. The cultural and wellbeing
agenda is run with the
Municipal Department of
Culture and the National
Institute of Sport and
Recreation.
100. Businesses operating in
the historic centre contribute
1 per cent of their income if
operating in national currency
and 5 per cent if they operate
in international currency.
Cuentapropistas need to
contribute 10 per cent of
the fee defined by the Tax
Administration Office. However,
the new changes to currency
may change this distribution
soon.
101. The SDC, UNICEF and the
European Union have also
supported some of the key
social programmes.
102. Henken (2018), page 270.
103. The state needs to
adapt its institutions and
regulatory frameworks and
strengthen communities’
participation capacity to
manage private developers’
interests in processes of urban
development.
104. Chaguaceda (2011), page
21.
105. Horn (2021).
to do some non-profitable work within a community, by their own efforts,
without having a regulatory framework”.(102) This suggests that it had had
some flexibility to generate new partnerships and alliances, but also that
these alliances were built to cover the vulnerabilities left by non-existent
regulation. At the same time, while the economic activities that animate
the socio-spatial programmes of this initiative are well supported within
the microenvironment of the historic centre, they have also experienced
structural barriers from within the economic macro-environment such
as over-centralized decision making and limited autonomy. Thus, private
ventures – cuentapropistas and the like – are relatively new phenomena,
and are likely to become a more common feature of urban transformation.
While they play a positive role in introducing ideas of entrepreneurial
solidarity and social innovation, they also run the significant risk of
eventually pricing out the local population.(103)
VI. PATCHWORK LEGACIES AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR
SCALING PARTICIPATION UP AND OUT
This overview of initiatives reveals the different ways in which
participation has been enacted in Havana – as emancipatory self-
management, as a prerequisite for local development and as a strategy of
co-responsibility. It must be acknowledged, however, that, as Chaguaceda
explains, “participation, as it is defined in practice, has a consultative bias in
the sense that citizens’ discussions take place on courses of action that have
already been outlined or determined at higher institutional levels, such as the
State Council and Politburo”.(104) While the central government has led
most of the initiatives, however, many others are led “from the bottom”
by community groups, NGOs or private individuals, and all have complex
arrangements with international cooperation agencies and central and
local governments. In the workshops we conducted, we found that most of
the initiatives documented were generated by actors at the neighbourhood
level, with strong linkages to relevant levels of public administration, to
the neighbourhood councils, and in collaboration with actors operating
across scales. Even though the impact of these participatory initiatives is
spatially limited, the wealth of experience and accumulated knowledge
can inform the deepening of participatory planning, given that Havana
has no city-wide participatory planning strategy as yet. The main scaling-
up mechanism pertains to the participatory “ecology” of the City of
Havana, which is highly diverse in terms of the type of actors involved
and their scale of operation. In the analysis of these patchworked legacies,
we find a set of distinctive enabling and constraining mechanisms for
scaling up and outwards:
a. Enabling conditions for scaling up/out
Leading actors and alliances in participatory planning:
Intersectoral alliances are a key dimension in scaling processes.(105) We
learnt:
From the Plan Maestro: The direct support of the national level, along
with the recognition of the multilateral organizations (i.e. UNESCO),
MAPPING PARTICIPATORY PLANNING IN HAVANA
19
106. Irazábal (2009).
107. Rambaldi etal. (2006).
increases the initiative’s political leverage and supports strong multilevel
and intersectoral alliances. The importance of securing support from both
the highest level (i.e. the Council of Ministers) and the local level ensures
the institutionalization of initiatives. The OCH’s general structural
principles have subsequently been institutionalized nationwide, with a
nascent network of nine city historian offices in nine cities.
From the talleres: The key objective of partnering with local universities
is to develop comparable and socially relevant research processes. A
methodological approach that seeks to engage residents in all stages
of the decision-making process promotes the active involvement of
citizens.
From Artecorte: The alliance with state-owned firms opens livelihood
generation opportunities for local residents that can be replicated in
other sectors of the city. The alliance with the OCH allows street-level
interventions to be aligned with the broader vision of urban change
defined in the local plan.
Regulatory frameworks for participatory planning: Strong
municipalities are crucial for decentralization processes, as well as for their
influence on a multilevel regulatory system that supports deliberative
spaces for urban planning.(106) We learnt:
From the Plan Maestro: The legal recognition of participatory
planning and a negotiated regulatory framework to support municipal
autonomy helps to sustain experiments in citizen engagement at
different scales.
From the talleres: The absence of a fixed regulatory framework has
meant flexibility for their operation, allowing them to adapt to the
local context and to maintain the creativity envisioned in their
creation.
From Artecorte: The cuentapropista-led initiative is not inscribed in a
particular regulatory framework, which to some degree protects the
independence of the citizen engagement process.
Knowledge and information management to sustain
participatory planning: Participatory planning is enhanced if there
are mechanisms to elicit local knowledge and build on local dynamics to
facilitate communication among actors.(107) We learnt:
From the Plan Maestro: The availability and constant updating
of cultural and territorial data in open-source platforms supports
transparency and easy public access. The documentation of
participatory methods that focus on intersectional identities is also
valuable to foster into a city-wide participatory strategy. On a larger
scale, there is the budding development of city historian offices in
nine more cities, based on information about Havana’s OCH.
From the talleres: The case showed how a commitment to popular
education, focusing on the most vulnerable populations and a shared
interdisciplinary methodology, is important to achieve coherence and
flexibility across myriad neighbourhoods. The rich documentation
of the case and its reputation at the international level have helped
to inspire the creation of research centres for local and community
development across several other cities in Cuba.
ENVIRONMENT & URBANIZATION
20
108. Boonyabancha and Kerr
(2018).
From Artecorte: The focus on capacity building for job generation and
culture preservation creates pedagogical assets that could be learnt
from in other economic sectors.
Financial and endogenous resources for participatory planning:
Citizens’ opportunity to identify, discuss and prioritize public spending
projects, as well as supporting “community finance” options, contributes
to deepening decentralization processes.(108) We learnt:
From the Plan Maestro: The international prestige of the OCH
provides political legitimacy for channelling international funding
for the preservation of strategic historic and cultural assets of the
country. The fiscal decentralization confers a high degree of autonomy
of the public expenditure (i.e. the OCH retains 100 per cent of the
“restoration contribution” tax). The current piloting of participatory
budgeting in one sector of the historic centre has the potential to be
replicated in other neighbourhoods or in a city-wide space.
From the talleres: The continuity of the interdisciplinary teams
is a relevant endogenous resource. The incremental growth and
networked operation with periodic meetings helps to consolidate the
institutional memory across neighbourhoods.
From Artecorte: Testing different models of social responsibility
for cuentapropistas (for instance, the self-organized savings called
“collection box”) could open a variety of avenues to strengthen
local economic development at a wider scale. The exploration of
entrepreneurial solidarity schemes allows for the expansion of
opportunities for job generation while also upgrading public space.
b. Constraining conditions for scaling up/out
Leading actors and alliances in participatory planning: We
learnt:
From the Plan Maestro: The very uniqueness of the OCH presents
limitations in terms of institutional scaling, given the lack of
opportunity for strategic alliances with other municipalities.
From the talleres: The intermittent nature of collaboration with
international cooperation agencies limits the sustainability of the
projects proposed. The organizational structure also risks becoming
stagnant as a bureaucratic space with limited manoeuvrability to
partner with non-state organizations.
From Artecorte: Even though this initiative remains active, that is not
the case for several other autonomous initiatives that have been cut
short. This suggests, as Chaquaceda puts it, “the Cuban bureaucracy’s
profound and instinctive rejection of autonomous social practices (known as
autonomofobia)”.(109)
Regulatory frameworks for participatory planning: We learnt:
From the Plan Maestro: Overly rigid institutional structures and
regulations can inhibit the growth of new initiatives and the flexibility
for them to flourish.
109. Chaguaceda (2011), page
24.
MAPPING PARTICIPATORY PLANNING IN HAVANA
21
From the talleres: The absence of a regulatory framework inhibits their
legal recognition and the consolidation of self-management schemes,
and hinders their institutionalization at a broader scale.
From Artecorte: The absence of a regulatory framework for shaping the
role of cuentapropistas in participatory planning limits the possibilities
for a more plural citizen engagement.
Knowledge and information management to sustain
participatory planning: We learnt:
From the Plan Maestro: The expertise required to shape open-source
geographic data, not currently present across municipalities, limits
the emergence of digital geographic platforms at the city level.
From the talleres: The restricted access to longitudinal data on territorial
features, transformation and interventions at the neighbourhood
level limits public access in the digital sphere.
From Artecorte: Prejudice against non-state actors could undermine
efforts to scale the current training capacity to other locations or
sectors.
Financial and endogenous resources for participatory planning:
We learnt:
From the Plan Maestro: Outside the OCH jurisdiction, the devolution
of territorial competences without financial resources inhibits the
motivation of citizens to engage in deliberative processes, as there is
limited potential for impact on the built environment.
From the talleres: The lack of autonomy and the loss of any direct
allocation of financial resources weaken the potential impact in the
physical space and deepen the dependence on municipal budgets,
NGOs or international cooperation agencies, undermining territorial
impact and continuity.
From Artecorte: Despite the promotion of livelihoods, the current
structural barriers in the macro-environment erode the potential to
scale out economic impact across the city. The upgrading of the built
environment poses the risk of eventually pricing out local residents.
VII. CONCLUSIONS
This paper has presented Havana’s framings, trajectories and legacies of
citizen participation in planning. We have argued that, in the absence of a
strategy of participatory planning at the city scale, decision makers might
learn from existing initiatives at the neighbourhood or municipal level
to harness the existing endogenous resources that foster participatory
processes. In order to increase the deliberative power of neighbourhood
councils, it is necessary to expand the recognition of intersectional
disadvantages and the distribution of resources for material transformation
of urban space. A plural vision of the city and its future requires a city-
wide strategy that prioritizes the most disadvantaged municipalities.
Useful learning can be drawn from:
ENVIRONMENT & URBANIZATION
22
the creative agency and interdisciplinary methodology of the talleres’
strategic community planning;
the existing experimentation capacity and territorial finances of the
Plan Maestro;
and the intersectoral alliances and entrepreneurial solidarity of
Artecorte.
New participatory initiatives have tended to emerge at moments of
recalibration within the state, when there are opportunities to impact
these processes. In the current phase of recalibration, some of the
new activities take the form of neighbourhood initiatives led by the
private sector, which present new challenges for participatory urban
development. The need to ensure local citizen participation in creating
and implementing a community vision for urban development is
complicated by the uncertainty around the post-pandemic recovery, as
well as by developments that affect the availability of financial resources
for urban improvement – from both national and international sources,
with both budgeted and project-based funding.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We want to thank the UCL Global Engagement Office (GEO) grant for
making possible the initial exploratory work that led to this article and
to all the main workshop participants for contributing their time and
rich experience. We are also very grateful to the anonymous reviewers for
their valuable comments and suggestions, and to Sheridan Bartlett and
Christine Ro for their helpful advice and careful reading throughout the
process.
FUNDING
This article is part of the research project KNOW, funded by the UK’s
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) under the Global Challenges
Research Fund (GCRF) [grant number ES/P011225/1].
ORCID iDs
Catalina Ortiz https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5000-7428
Alejandro Vallejo https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4384-1312
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