Cap-Haïtien, on Haiti's northern coast, is the country's original capital and cultural-historical center. Rebuilt repeatedly after fires and the 1842 earthquake, it now faces new pressure: rapid growth from rural-to-urban migration and resettlement from Port-au-Prince after the 2010 earthquake.
Despite world-class historic and natural resources, the city has been chronically underfunded since losing capital status nearly two centuries ago. It suffers from no organized waste collection, inadequate clean water, deficient sanitation, limited healthcare, inconsistent energy, uncontrolled development, and severe congestion — problems set to compound as population doubles by 2050.
Decades of neglect have left roads undersized and overwhelmed by trucks, tap-taps, motorcycles, and pedestrians, most funneled into the old town, where commerce, schools, and medical facilities concentrate. The historic street grid was never built for this volume of traffic.
Water and sanitation access remain severely limited, fueling disease in the city's poorest, densest areas. With no modern waste infrastructure, residents have turned the local river into a de facto landfill — once used for fishing, now heavily polluted, and during seasonal flooding it carries waste directly into thousands of homes along its banks. The river stands as a visible symbol of the city's current state.
Economic precarity compounds these issues: most residents depend on informal, inconsistent income, while the country's reliance on food imports undermines food security.
A comprehensive assessment — spanning physical infrastructure, social infrastructure, natural environment, economy, and demographics — identified five priority issues:
Modeled on Havana's decentralized local-production network, the proposed system spans two typologies: urban and rural.
Urban agriculture ranges in scale — from rooftop and balcony gardens to multi-hectare community farms — growing crops for both human consumption and livestock feed. Because it can rely on raised, controlled planting environments rather than native soil, it isn't constrained by soil quality, giving Cap-Haïtien greater agricultural potential than the previously estimated 61,000 hectares.
Beyond economic value, urban agriculture carries social and cultural weight: transforming neglected lots into secure, productive spaces, fostering neighborly exchange, and discouraging harmful practices like building in ecological zones or public defecation.
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