“…Following the legalisation of ‘free’ market sales in 2011, a local property boom emerged where Cuban nationals, émigrés and some foreign investors funded housing acquisitions and converted Havana properties into private hotels, restaurants and short-term rentals (Jolivet and Alba-Carmichael, 2021; Wijburg et al, 2021). Nevertheless, due to reliance on tourism, lack of a stable currency and complex interactions between Cuban authorities and property-owning private entrepreneurs (Acosta et al, 2020), Havana’s foundation of urban commodification remains fragile and weak. Thus, by exploring the limits to Havana’s local market institutions, the paper first contributes to ongoing debates on the incomplete and contested nature of urban commodification in the Global North and South (Kaltenbrunner and Karacimen, 2016; Kutz, 2018; Obeng-Odoom, 2022), and more specifically to urban scholarship on transnational capital mobility in Latin American, Caribbean, socialist or post-socialist cities (McTarnaghan et al, 2016; Pósfai et al, 2017).…”