A Cuban woman walks in front of the large apartment block in Abel Santamaría, a public housing suburb of Santiago de Cuba, Cuba.

---

A Cuban woman walks in front of the large apartment block in Abel Santamaría, a public housing suburb of Santiago de Cuba, Cuba, 31 July 2008. The Cuban economic transformation (after the revolution in 1959) has changed the housing status in Cuba from a consumer commodity into a social right. In 1970s, to overcome the serious housing shortage, the Cuban state took over the Soviet Union concept of social housing. Using prefabricated panel factories, donated to Cuba by Soviets, huge public housing complexes have risen in the outskirts of Cuban towns. Although these mass housing settlements provided habitation to many families, they often lack infrastructure, culture, shops, services and well-maintained public spaces. Many local residents have no feeling of belonging and inspite of living on a tropical island, they claim to be “living in Siberia”.

---

Size: 5316px × 3544px
Location: Santiago de Cuba, Cuba
Photo credit: © Jan Sochor / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: anonymous, apartment, architecture, block, building, city, communism, community, concrete, conditions, cuba, de, development, housing, living, mass, outskirts, panel, periphery, prefabricatation, public, reparto, santiago, settlement, social, socialism, soviet, street, style, suburb, suburbia, town, urban, walk, woman