The costs of restoring Havana’s fading glory

A woman walks in a neighbourhood in central Havana. ‘Because most of the city is at different levels of dereliction … the cost of sympathetic renovation will be so great only the wealthy will be able to afford to live there.’ Photograph: Claudia Daut/Reuters

In your article on Havana (1 February), your correspondent claims that “On the cobbled streets of Habana Vieja … it can now be hard to move for the throngs of tour groups”. I was there last week, staying smack bang in the centre of old Havana and, sure, there were tourists, but not throngs of them. It was indeed a joy to flâneur through the maze of world-class architecture. Because most of the city is at different levels of dereliction – other than parts of the old city which have already been restored – the cost of sympathetic renovation will be so great that only the wealthy will be able to afford to live there. So people in Havana are very much stuck between a rock and a hard place: they either see their city continue to crumble around them, or vacate the city centre for the suburbs.
Sean O’Donoghue
Hay-on-Wye, Powys

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