Although the architecture in many places has colonial bearings, most buildings are 1950s-vintage, and they're disintegrating due to a lack of building supplies. Most notably, paint is in short supply, and it's sad to see proud buildings made shabby for lack of a simple coat of paint. American high rollers built mansions in Cuba in the 1950s. Today they stand silently in disrepair. At night you can squint and imagine what these elegant homes must have been like in their prime.
Shortages are everywhere.
Those with relatives who are visiting do better, and those in the travel industry gain all our castoff clothing and leftover shampoo and soaps. After all, most Cubans have U.S. relatives, and it's not possible to hate your cousins. The roads were full of American cars from the '50s. Filled with people heading to work, these cars act as cabs, easing the transportation shortages by picking up people lined up on the side of the road. More cars were exported from Detroit to Cuba in the 1950s than to any other location, and most of them are still on the road, converted to diesel or vegetable-oil fuel.