Urban political ecology has developed as a critique of capitalist urbanization. This article develops the concept of alter-urban political ecology to define urban environments emerging not from capitalist urbanization but from efforts to transform it. Drawing on archival research and ethnographic fieldwork in five urban farms in socialist Cuba, I argue that a Marxist critique of colonial capitalism matters less as an analytical tool and more as a reference point within Cuban politics for understanding urban–rural restructuring since the 1960s. The article brings debates on socialist cities into conversation with urban political ecology to analyse two moments of radical transformation: first, the Cordón de La Habana—a project that in 1968 mobilized Havana’s urban workforce in periurban agriculture to disrupt the uneven development of colonial capitalism. Second, the practices of ‘organopónico’ urban farmers in Pinar del Río, who in 2013 navigated a political economy blending socialized land ownership, state planning, market sales and moral incentives. These experiences of urban and periurban agriculture demonstrate how urban–rural relations have been reimagined and transformed within Cuban socialism, offering new directions for urban political ecology beyond its capitalist foundations.