Our Man in Havana ... by gimleteye

MIAMI has lived in Havana's shadow for decades. Every local politician, one way or another, has been forced to positions and pledges in a way that reinforces a rigid orthodoxy. The embargo and its discontents are more about enforcing orthodoxies in MIAMI. Even while Cuba is changing -- albeit slowly -- MIAMI remains the same in key political respects.

MIAMI is all about business. While there are many different forms that business takes -- creating a modern city, suburbs and skyline -- the most important business tied to politics is land speculation and development. In this respect, Havana could not be more different.

Take into account all Cuba's suffering, the material poverty, the mistakes of a command and control economy, the expropriation of wealth, the despair of the black market, of the dual currency nightmare, the weight of a police state; taking these all into account, the resilience, spirit and creativity of Havana's citizens is as remarkable as the city itself. Havana, itself, is as gorgeous as it is faded, as remarkable as it is decrepit, as unique as any city in the Americas.

Havana is a time capsule that has preserved a human scale street grid and neighborhoods where building and construction and architectural form stopped still in the 1930's and 1940's. Inside the time capsule is a city plan and structures in various stages of disrepair, dilapidated or falling to pieces, but in their totality: fantastic. Only a few places were bulldozed to make way for Soviet architectural triumphalism. 95 percent of urban landscape is untouched since the 19th and early 20th centuries when Cuba, with all its rampant inequities, could rightly claim title to one of the great cities. It still can. The bones of Havana are gorgeous, even if the government is uncertain how to bring the city into the 21st century.

While change comes slowly, one senses the explosive potential of the place.

As the Castro generation fades and soon disappears, it is harder and harder to separate the hatreds from the political orthodoxies in MIAMI, that served mainly to protect land speculators and zoning and permitting in SOUTH FLORIDA, from the business potential of Cuba. For MIAMI, the likelihood increases that powerful Cuban American political interests will miss out on the evolution, because geographical proximity counts for less and less.

Of course, this is particularly grating since the land speculators and sprawl developers have fallen on such hard times. They have used the hatreds of Castro to burn up and consume the South Florida landscape, but because of those hatreds are least equipped to influence change in Cuba. In the meantime, businesses based in other countries with modernized economies are much better placed to participate in Cuba's inevitable change. (to be continued...)