Cold War cities: Taipei, Isfahan, Havana. Competitive grand strategy and urban change

From the end of World War II in 1945 until the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991, strategically located cities throughout the Third World were unintentionally shaped and molded by Cold War competitive grand strategy. In the context of American-Soviet competition for global prestige and influence, these cities received large infusions of superpower military and economic assistance, weapons, and technology. In extreme cases, they were affected by covert intervention or armed presence.;Militaristic activity overlapped with a period of domestic change. As a result, Cold War and domestic variables intermingled to reshape the urbanization process. Taipei, Taiwan; Havana, Cuba; and Isfahan, Iran---illustrate the ways in which Cold War factors contributed to an on-going reorganization of the location and distribution of various urban activities as well as to a contestation between global and local aspects of urbanization. They became, in actuality, Cold War cities as measured by four clearly definable characteristics: strategic and geopolitical value; patron-client relationship; economic, social, and political integration of superpower resource flows; militaristic changes in the built environment.;Most importantly, in the political sphere, superpower pressure and intervention contributed to regime preservation, the introduction of new organizations, and institutional change which, in turn, impacted opportunity for democratic transition. Moreover, the ability to attract global flows and garner economic advantage in an increasingly globalized world became, to some extent, associated with the Cold War city-superpower relationship.;Urban identity in the post Cold War period continues to be defined by blurred boundaries between international politics and diverse domestic institutions and policies. Still, cities are often dynamically impacted by more local and indigenous concerns emerging at the grassroots level. This, in the longterm, may effect permanent democratic outcomes.