What's The Deal With Miami?

A meditation on one of the most unique places in FLORIDA...which is already saying something

Downtown Miami: nice groove if you can afford it (you can't)

Driving in Kansas City has shown me the worst of both driving behaviors and lax enforcement. Red light cameras? Only effective if someone isn’t cutting you off. Expired tags? People speed past police with missing license plates. Speed limits? They feel more like speed minimums. The only organized aspect is the traffic lights Highway 71, which fail in their dual endeavor to either slow down speeders or boost local businesses in the area.

I know each city is unique, but traffic design reveals much about social cohesion. And Miami’s highways, despite attempts at order, mirror the chaos of Kansas City and a similar fractured social fabric. With the socio-political lens I wear, that creates a uniquely niche profile: The sub-urbanization and (further) Hispanic-ification of South Florida have excaberated class divides and a distinct form of Cultural Republicanism which presents an alternative urban model to the typical Blue Coastal Enclaves.

Miami’s history as a modern American city is puzzling. Like remodeled metropolitan areas such as Detroit, its growth post-World War II saw populations move to suburbs while the urban cores stagnated. Hell, my need for a car became evident after a 45-minute search for the airport bus stop. Driving through western Broward County and West Palm County highlighted this experience, showcasing the behaviors of many Northern (and often Jewish) transplants in new arrival enclaves and shopping centers. The Hispanic influence was significantly less visible in these Northern Counties but still complementary in its growth model and political obtuseness.

My time in Miami-Dade (by far the biggest county) quickly clarified its cultural domination. The high prices of food and drink, even outside the urban center, came in tandem with a Hispanic culture that, though unusual, was still authentic and distinct. Unlike other havens for our neighbors to the South, the presence here is as affluent as it is Latin. These Spanish Speakers, whether immigrant, descendant, or otherwise, live in newly built upscale neighborhoods that look to embody a neat suburbanization that is difficult to build in the Global South. It resembles areas like Polanco and La Condesa in Mexico City rather than more working-class regions you could expect to find in, say, Washington Heights, New York City. Ironically, the most working class Hispanic neighborhood I found in this metro was Little Havana, an area whose Cuban descendants have come to embody the Hispanic Republicanism of the region.

The Tourist Haven of Little Havana: Not Your Influencer's Miami

I don't mean to dismiss Miami's Latin Americans as inauthentic; rather, their culture is different from the traditional USA-migrant narrative of humble migrants seeking better prospects. Many of these migrants arrived with ample resources, easily obtaining work visas and higher paying jobs in a way that, say, Venezuelan Economic Migrants, could not. They expanded their roots in a region that is both American and Latin, embodying an entrepreneurial spirit and mantra of hard work that is highly foreign (get it??) to a Democratic Party which increasingly fails to understand it.

They don't call it design district for nothing

In this exact vein, that spirit explains Miami-Dade County’s Republican shift in the Trump Era. Hispanic Republicans have long influenced the Florida GOP, especially through the Cuban community that fled Castro's regime. This development style is emulated by other Latin American now in the region, blending cultural affluence with a selective assimilation that emphasizes hard work and rejects of racial and class concerns.

This perspective suggests an alternative path for a diversifying America, for better and for worse. As opposed to entertaining the white suburban liberal who 'supports' the questionable prospects of black and brown people crammed into the urban periphery, the South Florida standard of development, with its dual qualities of suburban and Latin, is more racially interwoven but also inherently classist. I noticed low-wage jobs in Miami that mirrored those in Central America, with workers in menial positions often overlooked. While affluent Hispanics showcase their culture in upscale stores, their compatriots work behind the scenes for minimum wage (or below, if they were paid under the table due to questionable immigration status). The prospects for Americans of Color here are bright, so long as you forcefully reject victim-hood and believe in the questionable metrics of genuine merit. Yet, just like the Blue City Model, this leaves a lot of good people trapped in poverty.

Poverty in the U.S. differs immensely from that in Latin America, but inequality is still inequality. And in Florida, a development model centered on tourism and foreign commerce fosters a divide that could further remove the haves from the have-nots as opposed to moving them together. Miami exemplifies the highs and lows of an increasingly diverse Republican development model, and while it contrasts with wealthy liberal cities, both models highlight the need for perspective and solutions that are innovative because they meet in the middle.

The Pier: I got a churro here, ironically the least authentic part of the trip