The Spanish explorer, Juan Ponce De Leon landed on the shores of the new world in the early 16th century seeking the fountain of youth. Unfortunately it wasn’t there and he named the area he discovered, Florida. What was there remains, constant sunshine and warm, balmy nights.
The city of Miami, known to locals as the Magic City, was officially established in the 1890s. The city remained a remote outpost for the first half of the twentieth century. The advent of air conditioning during the second half of the twentieth century is often credited with being the most influential factor in establishing Miami as a desirable destination. Its unseasonable warmth and aesthetic beauty made the city an easy sell to retirees looking to escape cold northern winters.
Consequently, for the first couple of decades following the advent of air conditioning Miami was known as a sleepy retirement town, where people from all over the United States moved to and enjoyed perpetual sunshine with a relaxed, agreeable way of life. The Art Deco District on Miami Beach attracted celebrities like the Rat Pack and Elle Fitzgerald. It attracted characters that wanted late mornings and later nights – think Dustin Hoffman’s character in Midnight Cowboy, Ratso Rizzo who dreamed that Miami Beach was abundant with rich widows, promiscuous women and abundant sunshine.
The Miami of today began to take shape relatively recently during the 1970s. During that time, cocaine became the drug of choice within the burgeoning Disco scene and drug cartels from Central and South America recognized the insatiable appetite for the drug. They also realized that the South Florida coast was considerably unprotected by the coast guard and thus countless tons of drugs were smuggled through Miami’s ports. The Cocaine Cowboys as they became known brought levels of crime to south Florida that were unseen in the United States since prohibition 50 years earlier. Ultimately, they brought the money that helped build modern Miami.
The Rackontur documentary, Cocaine Cowboys, interviews the smugglers, drug runners and law enforcement agents involved in the war on drugs that saw Miami as its central battleground. The documentary examines how a sleepy retirement city that attracted the elderly and tourists became, as Time magazine described it in 1981, Paradise Lost.
Modern Miami’s unique culture and accent is decidedly Latin. The reign of the Cocaine Cowboy combined with the influx of Cuban exiles fleeing Casto’s Revolution led to a mass exodus of its original residents. Modern Miami is a city where English is optional and the language of business and pleasure is Spanish. Many Fortune 500 companies have located their Latin American headquarters in the Miami area. Not being able to converse or conduct business in Spanish can limit possibilities.
It is a northern American city established in the south. Miami does not have the southern charm that is prevalent in northern Florida along the gulf coast, but the charm of Miami is in its cuisine, its various Latin, Haitian and Caribbean cultures that come together to create a unique lifestyle. The Art Deco District of apartments and boutique hotels on Miami Beach remain an area of historic interest. Go further south or west and the Everglades natural park has spectacular scenery, wildlife and an eco-system found only in this part of the world.
When Stephen Fry visited Miami as part of his fifty states tour in a London taxi, he described Miami and Miami Beach as a hole, a sunshine paradise replete with all the tack associated with the term. Like most tourist areas of most cities, the description is correct. It is only when you venture away from the postcard and novelty T-Shirt shops to districts such as Little Havana, Little Haiti, Coconut Grove, The Design District, and Midtown that you can begin to appreciate the Miami that attracts people from all over the world.
The current debate the city is grappling with, is whether to permit gambling licenses and establish casinos within the city limits. Currently, local casinos are located on Native American land owned by the Seminole tribe (the only tribe in America that never signed a peace treaty) and the Miccosukee tribe. The arguments for casinos are plentiful; tourism, job creation and taxes. However with legalized gambling comes organized crime, a stigma which the city is still recovering from some 20 years after its violent war on drugs.
From a city that was established as a result of an Orange crop failure in Northern Florida to a city of international prominence, Miami has grown from just under 400 people in the 1890s to a city with a metropolitan population exceeding 2.5 million. It is a charming city once you get used to the extreme heat and humidity. The city’s charm is tempered by its inherent challenges. Driving in Miami is a sport where designated road signs are not mandates but merely suggestions and pedestrians dander onto the street with reckless abandonment for their own lives.
Additionally, it was recently ranked as America’s worst run city. Once you come to terms with the fact that you cannot change the manana attitude, blatant rudeness of residents and the incidents of road rage that punctuate the city’s streets and roadways, you can begin to appreciate the Miami way of life, the late mornings, the long lunches and all year round outdoor lifestyle.
