ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with a critical overview of the 1990s restructuring of institutions and governing mechanisms involved with environmental matters in Cuba and its implications for Havana. It reviews the salient socio-environmental characteristics of Havana's municipalities, highlighting how northern coastal neighbourhoods display better living conditions than southern areas. The chapter also reviews the namely, air and noise pollution and deforestation. It explores both the positive and negative environmental impacts of tourism have been spatially limited to Havana's tourism poles. This spatial concentration is contributing to the increasing of the socio-economic dualization of the city between economically and socio-envirormentally advantaged neighbourhoods located along the coast and backwards and neglected southern areas. More specifically, it is argued that urban tourism is prompting diverging environmental conditions within Havana's neighbourhoods. No data are available to assess the share of tourism in Havana's total electricity consumption or the extent to which tourism infrastructures contribute to the increase of the overall demand.
