Why it looks like this

Havana grew in rings you can still walk: the walled colonial town by the harbour (founded in 1519, UNESCO-listed in 1982), the elegant 19th-century grid of Centro Habana outside the demolished walls, then Vedado's leafy numbered streets, and the Malecón seafront drive curving along the whole shore.

The revolution froze this map. With little money for redevelopment and no speculative building, Havana kept nearly its entire historic street fabric — decayed in places, but unbroken, which is why the city reads like a time-lapse of 400 years of planning ideas.