Picture: Felix Lipov via Vecteezy.com

Written by Moises Carrasco

In the 1970s, Cuba faced a severe nationwide housing shortage due to population growth, rural-to-urban migration, and the degradation of existing housing stock. The government’s answer was a system that pulled ordinary workers off their regular jobs and put them on building sites instead. This program, known as the Microbrigadas (microbrigades), reshaped entire districts of Havana, where they combined collective self-construction and state-backed technical knowledge, which left a mark on the urban grid of its capital city that persists until today.

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