Main Tool: ArcGIS
Cuba was one of the first countries to have commercial radio stations. By 1923, the new invention had spread across the island and, until 1959, the country did not cease to be at the forefront of radio production in Latin America. The history of radio in Cuba has two critical books, La radio en Cuba, by Oscar Luis Lopez, and Apuntes para la historia. Radio, television y farandula de la Cuba de ayer, by Enrique C. Betancourt. Both books offer a well-informed account of the modernizing cultural impact radio had. Authors refer to the initial mobility of radio stations—short-term initiatives, location changes, modernization of technical equipment—however, no effort has been made to accompany this textual information with visualizations and spatial analyzes that allow a better understanding of how the new invention was inserted and transformed the urban landscape of Cuban cities and towns.
The changes in the soundscape that radio produced were accompanied by changes in the mobility dynamics of artists, musicians, and radio enthusiasts who began to gather in specific areas of the city now for professional reasons. It has implications for the formation of a modern community,. Radio contributed to creating new collectivities based on a sound background and new ways of listening and interacting. Radio began by reinforcing local and regional ties, and later became a central instrument for shaping the nation when national transmission networks were established and continue to function today on new supports in the organization of a transnational community. Cuba Broadcastings (1923-1950) explores the development of radio in Cuba from its emergence in 1923 to the last republican decade in relation to urban space on two scales: the national—where radio stations created on the Island are located by cities and provinces, and their relationship with population; and the local one, where the movements of radio stations over Havana urban space are studied to identify areas where musicians, artists and radio producers converged with greater probability.The biggest challenge this project has faced is the lack of updated geographic information on Cuba. The political-administrative division changed in 1975, and the digitized and georeferenced maps showing the old division are scarce. On the ESRI platform, only one project is archived that focuses on the restoration of Havana’s historic center, so it could not be used for our research that covers the rest of the city. It explains why a study could not be carried out at the municipal level, since the changes in this regard have been even more significant, especially concerning areas far from the urban center such as the current municipalities of Marianao, Arroyo Naranjo, and San Miguel del Padrón. To a lesser extent, the same happens with population data before the 2012 census, which has been removed from the Oficina Nacional de Información y Estadística’s website. I worked with publications before 1959, particularly the Census of the Republic of Cuba of 1943, published in 1945, and data on the Cuban population from the 1953 census published on the web.
Despite the limitations mentioned above, this project is a starting point for further studies on Cuba using GIS tools and computer methods. It may be of particular interest to those interested in Cuba’s economic, cultural and political development before 1959.
Processes
The first step of this project consisted of data extraction on Cuban radio history. With them, a database was built containing two series of tables: one for the national scale and the other for Havana. Both series share the following attributes: radio station’s names, owners, location(s), and technical aspects such as power and transmission’s frequency. Radio stations located outside of Havana were marked on the town or city where it operates. In the case of Havana’s, they have their addresses as an attribute. To identify changes in some street names in Havana, I consulted the book Las calles de La Habana, by Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring. An essential attribute for each series of tables is the date, which corresponds to the reports provided by the sources: 1923, 1930, 1939 and 1948, and a report on radio stations in Havana from 1931 (See Figure 2).
Simultaneously, I created a database with the information extracted from the population censuses carried out in Cuba in 1919, 1931, 1943, and 1953. Population data were collected from the six old Cuban provinces and from each of the towns and cities where there were radio stations in that period. Population’s date does not precisely coincide with the date from the source’s reports date on radio stations. The 1923 reports were correlated with data from the 1919 census; those from 1930, with those from the 1931 census; those of 1939, with those of 1943; and those of 1948, with those of 1953. This difference only affects the results of the study at the national level. The analysis of Havana does not take into account population data.
To obtain a shapefile that reproduces the old Cuban provinces, I imported into ArcGIS an 1898 map digitized by Mapsland.com (See Figure 1) and georeferenced by WMTS service using WGS_1984_Web_Mercator (Auxiliary Sphere). This projected coordinate system matches the base map used in the project that was downloaded from ESRI. Using that raster as a guide (freehand tool), I built polygons that matched the old provinces (See Figures 3). This shapefile was imported later, and it is the one used in the project for the analysis on a national scale.
Spatial information was added to the previously created databases, generating a geodatabase with three feature datasets: OldProvinces (polygons), TwonBroadcast (points), and HavanaBroadcast (points). Each of them contains five feature classes that correspond to each period: 1923, 1930, 1931, 1939, and 1948. The points in the feature classes on a national scale were located manually following the base map labels (See Figure 4). The points of the Havana feature classes were also added manually. Despite having the addresses as attribute, the Address Locator tool could not be used due to the lack of updated information on the city’s urban space (See Figure 5). The margin of error for these locations is calculated at around 100 meters: each point is in the correct block, but it is impossible to locate precisely the building in question in which a radio station operated, except when those building are at the corner, which is pretty common.
With the information on a national scale, Map 1 was produced—Cuba Radio Broadcasting and Population—, composed of three individual maps. Each one visualizes the population data by provinces and cities where there was at least one radio station. The representation of these points reflects their location, and graduated symbols were used to visualize the relationship between population and radio stations number on the corresponding dates. The analysis of the results makes it possible to highlight that the province of Las Villas was, outside the Cuban capital, where the most significant number of stations were created in these years, although the province remained in third place by the number of inhabitants. In 1923 there were stations in Caibarien, Cienfuegos, and Tuinucu. In the latter town, with a population of fewer than 1,000 inhabitants, two stations operated. This particularity, which was repeated in 1930 in the Havana town of Hershey, and in 1939 in San Luis, very close to Santiago de Cuba, is because these settlements were created as part of modern sugar mills. In 1930, stations were operating in Sagua la Grande, Caibarien, Cienfuegos, Tuinuco and Santa Clara (provincial capital). By 1939, Trinidad, Sancti Spiritus—where the Tuinucu station was moved—, Cruces and Placetas were added.
To process the data on the city of Havana, I merge the 1930 and 1931 data. The temporal proximity between the two press reports made the differences minimal. A second map—Havana Broadcasting 1923-1948—was created that visualizes the location of radio stations in the urban space (larger map), and a second smaller map (right upper corner) in which, using the intersect tool, the two points with the longest radial tradition in the capital are located: CMBZ Radio Salas and CMW La Voz de las Antillas, the latter located on the upper floor of the building where one of the most critical newspapers in Cuba, Diario de la Marina, was operating (See Figure 6, above).
Subsequently, the buffer tool was used to visualize a radius of 500 meters around each radio station, which I call the influence zone. The goal is to visualize areas with a high probability of pedestrian circulation of musicians, artists, and radio workers. The choice of this buffer range responds to the convenience criteria of this research. A buffer close to 100 meters would be overlap with the margin of error of these locations; a buffer higher than 1000 meters would create an influence zone that would cover most of the city due to the number of stations. After applying these tools, I designed map 3 —Havana. Radio Broadcasting zones—, which contains the stations’ location on each date and the influence zone from previous reports. The study of these maps shows that between 1923 and 1930-31, there was an expansion of influence zones. By 1939 there was a contraction that not only corresponds to a decrease in stations number (from 74 to 40), but their concentration in three areas: the northern portion of the Vedado neighborhood, the union of the Old Havana neighborhoods and Centro Habana, and a small area in La Vibora.
By 1948, the contraction trend was maintained both in radio stations number (from 40 to 35) and in the influence zone’s area. This trend has a high probability of continuing for the next decade, as is showed in the last small map.
Cuba Broadcastings (1923-1950) visualizes the accelerated development that radio had in Cuba since the very year of its creation, not only in the country’s capital but throughout the island. This development was associated with modernization and the accumulation of wealth in certain parts of the Cuban geography. The cases of Tuinucu (1923 and 1930), Hershey (1930), and Sagua la Grande (1930 and 1939) demonstrate this. Despite being small settlements, the modernization of the sugar industries in the first two cases and the development of an industrial zone and a port in Sagua la Grande can be seen as excellent examples of this association between radio and modernization.
In Havana, radio stations’ highest concentration was located in the Old Havana and Centro Habana neighborhoods. It was an expected result since it is the area with the most outstanding urban and cultural development from colonial times to the present day. The same could be said of Vedado, especially in its northern portion. This neighborhood had begun to develop in the second half of the 19th century and reached a high level of urban development after 1930, with skyscrapers, cinemas, theaters, and many other commercial businesses. An impressive result is to verify how widespread the new invention was around 1930-31, with radio stations in neighborhoods far from the center such as Marianao, Santos Suarez, San Miguel del Padron, Guanabacoa, and La Vibora. This last neighborhood is significant for being an area where at least one radio station was broadcasting between 1923 and 1948. The progressive concentration of radio stations in the northern part of the city corresponds to the colonial urban and cultural heritage; the constancy of radio initiatives in La Vibora deserves, due to its particularity, a separate study.With this project data and using GIS, new studies can be undertaken. It has been observed, for example, that the concentration process accelerated around 1939 when short wave transmission started. That acceleration increased around 1948 with the fusion of radio stations that competed to monopolize radio in Cuba. Such is the case of RHC Cadena Azul and, particularly, Circuito CMQ. CMQ concentrates in its modern 23 and L building, Vedado, 5 of the 35 radio stations active in 1948. This trend towards monopolization could be another cause of the progressive concentration that is appreciated after 1931. It would also be interesting to visualize the different radio station locations throughout these years and their relationship with changes in their owners.
Sources
Luis Lopez, Oscar. La radio en Cuba. La Habana: Ciencias Sociales, 2002.
Betancourt, Enriuqe. Apuntes para la historia. Radio, television y farandula en la Cuba de ayer. San Juan: Ramallo Bros., 1986.
Republica de Cuba. Informe general del Censo de 1943. La Habana: P. Fernandez y Cia., 1945.
Roig Leuchsenring, Emilio. Las calles de La Habana. Bases para su denominación. La Habana: Oficina del Alcalde, 1936.
