Morning_Glory

The most over-rated city in the US (and the world) is….

MIAMI

Forget Will Smith's 1998 hit "Miami", forget Miami Vice and forget those glossy images of Miami Beach......

In reality, there are 2 versions of Miami: there’s the Miami you see on TV, which is mostly Miami Beach, then there’s the rest of Miami – a bland, urban landscape littered with apartment buildings that look like cheap motels, gas stations, tacky strip malls, Publix supermarkets (Publix are the only real chain here), endless fast food restaurants, warehouses and cheap looking business parks. The version of Miami you don’t see on the TV is version 2 (an urban wasteland), where poverty, crime and inequality are rife and where the streets are literally choked with traffic. If you’re poor, you’ll live in a shack or an efficiency, or if you’re lucky, you’ll live in one of those apartment buildings that look like cheap motels with tiny windows and no view. There is no middle class here anymore, but if you have a little money, you’ll probably have paid over $400k for a box-like house, somewhere in the depths of Kendall or Homestead on SW 2,005,442 Street and 1,245,667 Ave, dealing with a 2 hour commute every day.

You’re led to believe that Miami is some sort of tropical paradise, full of beautiful beaches, great nightlife, great women and that Miami is simply bubbling with culture. Sure, it has palm trees and the nightlife is great, if you’re prepared to shell out well over $200 to go to one of the clubs on South Beach. Miami is no paradise though – in fact, it’s about as far from being a “paradise” as you can get. You’d think that with the tropical climate, people would have beautiful and lush gardens, but in reality, people here tear down trees and plants and replace them with asphalt and concrete.

Miami is a city with some of the worst traffic in North America. The roads here are inadequate, sub standard and generally f**ked up. Construction here takes 1,000 times longer than it does in the rest of the United States. Drivers here are amongst the rudest in the country. Not only are the drivers here rude, but they’re downright reckless too. They drive like maniacs in their Ford F150s, Dodge Rams or Honda Civics, with reggaeton blasting. This is a city with far too many “hit and run” type accidents – in other words, not only will they run you over, but they’ll drive off, because that’s what cowardly bastards do. But you only have to look at how easy the driving test is here and how they hand out licenses to anyone, even non-legal aliens who probably have no concept of what an expressway is.

For a metropolitan area of well over 5 million people, public transportation here is nothing short of a joke. You have one MetroRail line going north to south and it doesn’t even serve anywhere west of the airport (where the bulk of the population of Dade County live). You’re forced to use your car because there’s no other choice, unless you just so happen to live close to the Metro Rail, or can afford one of those overly priced condos in Brickell (south of Downtown).

Customer service in general here is far worse than ANYWHERE in the United States and there’s a general lack of quality and efficiency here that commonplace in the rest of this great country. Many people in this city are simply out to rip you of, including mechanics, doctors, vets and dentists. During the 4 years that I’ve lived here, I have never encountered so many shady so-called health professionals as I have here in Miami. As for customer service, forget it, unless you speak fluent ghetto-Spanish. It’s got to the point where I drive up to West Palm Beach (a good 2 hour drive) in order to get good customer service (West Palm Beach feels like part of the United States, unlike Miami-Dade).

As for Miami being paradise, I suggest that if you’re staying in Miami Beach, take a drive across the causeway and you’ll stumble upon the “urban wasteland” that I despise so much. There is truly nothing here – nothing in terms of parks, museums or infrastructure. Take a drive through Hialeah, Opa Locka, anywhere “NW” or Overtown and you’ll feel like you’re either in a slum part of Tijuana, a run down part of Kingston, Jamaica or a miscellaneous Latin American hell-hole.

Don’t get me started on Downtown Miami either – the place is a mess. You’d think that for such an “important” city, it’d have at least a decent-looking Downtown. Miami’s Downtown looks like something out of a zombie movie – deserted after 7pm, full of beggars and vagrants and downright dangerous. There’s no real retail, other than a Macy’s and hundreds of cheap electrical and luggage stores run by shady people. I don’t blame the homeless for being there – they have nowhere else to. Housing here is completely unaffordable, at best, because Miami is a city for the rich.

The new condo buildings here are nothing short of a disgrace. They are poorly designed, bland and they all look the same as the next condo. It’s sad that this city’s skyline will be shaped by bland condo buildings for decades to come – condo buildings that may not even sell as the condo boom will surely go bust at some point. It seems that this city builds and builds and builds without giving thought to investing in transport infrastructure or helping its real citizens that are the bread and butter of its economy. All the “boom’ is doing is driving up the cost of housing even further, flooding the market with housing stock that it doesn’t need, when it really needs affordable housing stock.

Let’s take a realistic look at Miami’s often hyped skyline. The skyline looks pretty at times (especially at night), but there are basically just two tall office buildings Downtown (one is extremely ugly, i.e. the Bank Of America Tower). You have the Four Seasons Tower in Brickell, but that’s just a plain old “box”. The rest of the skyline is littered with condominiums that are all carbon copies of the next condominium – how interesting, huh?

You have a genuine lack of zoning in Miami, hence the fact that despite having a (run down) Downtown district, there is no real commercial center and business are spread out randomly across the city, which probably doesn’t help the traffic problem.

An article on [www.local10.com stated that more people are fleeing South Florida than are coming here and that’s an indication of how fed up people are with this place and it’s unjustly high cost of living. This is a city where incomes are amongst the lowest in the United States while more of your salary will go on housing (rent or mortgage payments) than anywhere else in the country. I wouldn’t mind such a high cost of living if I was living in Manhattan, LA, Paris or London but not in Miami – an overbuilt swamp town at the ass-end of Florida. In reality, Miami is no more “special” than anywhere else in Florida, i.e. Jacksonville, Tampa and Orlando and to be honest, I’d rather live in any of those cities because at least I’d get my money’s worth.

The climate is what brings a lot of people here, but the climate sucks. For six months of the year, it rains more than it rains in Seattle. You have the risk of being hit by a hurricane too and this place has flooded more times than I care to remember. If so much as a tropical storm hits, it renders thousands of people without power for sometimes as long as 5 weeks. If a hurricane hits, forget it – the weak-ass power grid just crumbles. Then you have the constant humidity and the many bugs that are only too eager to bite.

Corruption is rife here, but the people seem to continue to vote for the same inadequate, corrupt politicians. This is a city where millions of dollars assigned to affordable housing projects mysteriously “disappears”. This is a city where greedy developers line the pockets of politicians to get their projects approved. This is a city where third world mentality prevails, including corruption (something you’d be used to in a country like Colombia, but not in the United States).

The biggest problem with Miami though is the people. I can honestly say that I have NEVER seen such a high percentage of complete and utter scumbags of the worst kind contained in one metropolitan area. Miami has a prevailing “ghetto” attitude, whether rich or poor. Many people here not only can’t speak English, but many refuse to speak English and refuse to assimilate into mainstream American society. I have found the majority of people in Miami to be shallow, superficial (even more so than Los Angeles), loud, obnoxious, rude and manipulative. This city is full of liars, cheats and thieves of the lowest form – thieves who will steal bottled water from an old lady (my mother in law, for instance). The Latin races here generally hate one another, i.e. Cubans hate Puerto Ricans, Puerto Ricans hate Cubans, Cubans hate Nicaraguans, etc, etc, etc. Not only that, but I find many Latinos here to be extremely racist towards black people. I’ve mentioned the drivers here, but I’ll mention them again – they suck. I’ve experienced a lot of road rage here first hand and I see absolutely horrible and reckless driving on a daily basis on my commute to work. At work, there is no professionalism and the ghetto culture has well and truly infested the workplace. Most jobs advertised here require you to be bilingual (Spanish), which is a joke considering that this is the United States. Some of the Latinos here take pride in the fact that they’ve driven the “gringos’ away. Many think that Americans are dull and boring and somehow inferior to them. However, many of the people are no different from your average piece of trailer trash; just replace country music with reggaeton and Budweiser with Presidente. People here in general are extremely uneducated and boy, it shows! Most of the morons here have probably never even read a book and probably never will, unless Daddy Yankee releases an autobiography with lots of pretty pictures in it. In short, Miami is just one big sprawling ghetto, filled with people that are quite simply the lowest of the low. Humanity doesn’t exist here – you could be dying in the street and no one would stop to help you. Most people here don’t have money, but they love to pretend that they do, driving expensive cars, living it large on South Beach, while still living with their parents and countless other family members in a two bedroom apartment in Hialeah. I honestly don’t know what’s worse here – the rich, or the wannabe rich. People here are all about “me, me, me”, hence the fact that I often call this place “MiaME”.

As for solutions to solve Miami’s problems – well, let’s just say that I am open to other people’s opinions here. To solve the problems in Miami, you’d probably have to kick out 80% of the population and replace them with good, honest, educated and hard working Americans. In all seriousness, a good start would be investing heavily in transport infrastructure, affordable housing projects and creating parks and other recreational areas. I would also clamp down on reckless drivers and I’d introduce a mandatory life sentence for causing death by “hit and run”. I would install speed cameras on major highways and traffic cameras on major intersections. I would make English MANDATORY and I would not allow employers to advertise jobs with “bilingual” as a requirement, unless it’s a multi-national firm. I would give companies financial incentives to relocate Downtown and speaking of Downtown Miami, I’d encourage development there in terms of retail malls, cinemas and department stores. Unfortunately, the “me me me” attitude prevails here.

I know that many will attack me for these opinions on such a highly regarded place, but I don’t care. I live here and work here and I write this based on not only my opinion, but the opinion of many others who have lived here all their life and hate Miami with a passion. Sure, this is a great “party city”, but it’s not such a great place to live for many people here who are struggling with the high (and ever increasing) cost of living. To me, Miami seems like it’s rotten to the core and maybe even beyond repair. Miami has no soul or vibe – it’s just a big over-sized ghetto wasteland / South Florida swamp town, filled with America’s least desirable people.

El Tico

I'm so sorry you've had to put up with such a negative picture. I partly agree with certain things like the infrastructure area (too much concrete, terrible public transportation) and the fact that Miami shows a nice facade to the world, which does not always reflect its entire reality. South Beach, Coral Gables, the Downtown area (not to mention residential areas like Star Island and Palm & Hibiscus Islands) all seem very shiny and beautiful on TV. On the other hand you'll never see the western part of the city because it's simply the "creepier" part (Hialeah, Liberty City,...). Another thing is that if you don't own a car you're basically handicap, because public buses take forever to get you to your destination (note that other cities like Houston aren’t much better off in this case). Then the consequence of every resident owning an automobile (not to mention the amount of unnecessary SUVs) not only creates a huge mess on the roads but highways end up reaching an excessive size. And finally to end Miami's "not so great stuff" tour, most people will tell you they avoid traveling through Miami airport because of its chaotic reputation, instead they'll use Fort Lauderdale airport.

Now I can understand all this frustration. Nevertheless I think you’ve either had the worst experiences of your life in this city or you’re just used to very high life standards. I’ve heard people talk exactly the same way of NY, LA, Paris and London. Believe me, all these places have their ghettos too. I moved to Switzerland over a decade ago but I keep in touch with my relatives in Miami and visit them quite often. I know you and I don’t live the same experiences but I must say I find people in Miami extremely nice. There’s also a great feeling of freedom that I don’t sense anywhere in Europe. And I know you’re not going to find kids reading novels in Burger King but I think the excess of consumerism extends to areas such as bookstores and more, allowing you the possibility to choose healthy activities. But yes, not everyone lives in the same Miami, some have never taken public transportation and work in an office on Brickell Avenue, others can only afford to ride the metrorail and work somewhere west of the airport. That’s the unfortunate truth almost anywhere you go on this planet. Now culture shock is a reality and does not only apply to different countries, but also exists within nations. Out of all people you’re probably the one who would agree the most with Tom Tancredo’s comments on Miami-Dade being “a third world country”. I know many people confront Spanish as the US’s second language, yet it’s a reality and it has its history. Just as the British, with their customs, set on the East Coast centuries ago, Cuban refugees came to South Florida looking for a place where they could practice freedom. The result is that nowadays Miami’s wealthiest people are from Hispanic background. These people not only worked hard but they played a key role in the city’s development. I think that makes Miami special and I know many people would agree with me, including former governor Jeb Bush. But of course it may be culture shocking for someone coming down from Denver. We mustn’t forget that Florida (literally meaning “flowered” in Spanish) was discovered by the Spaniards. I don’t agree with radical ideas that prohibit Spanish as a second language just like I don’t sympathize with banning English from the dominating Hispanic areas. Both extremes seem like an “ostrich” way of seeing things. One thing I’ve learned in Europe is how to cultivate that kind of heritage. For instance Switzerland has three official languages and the country is half the size of Florida. Everything is printed and published in German, French and Italian. Each group has its own culture and the people who are fluent in all three languages are quite rare. But this is a huge part of the country’s identity and it helps distinguish the nation from its neighbors and creates great diversity. Therefore wanting to put a huge standard is not only low fetched, it’s boring. I think Miami’s popularity and uniqueness has a lot to do with its variety.

Anyway I appreciate getting to know other opinions, it allows me to keep my neck and head out of the ground. By the way my dad told me that driving conditions in Tennessee were suicidal, in other words by far some of the worse he’d ever seen in the U.S of A.

BulldozerGirl

Thanks Morning_Glory for that detailed description of how you view Miami. I was visualizing it as I read through.

Some of the negative points you mention can be found in many other cities. The reliance on cars for transport is common in a lot of cities with hot climates, and as El Tico said, you find ghettos everywhere too. Some people actually take this to indicate how "real" a city is (Dubai is always bashed for having no ghettos, but it actually does have plenty).

At least there is Miami Beach and a "nice" unique part of the city... the downtown could use some improvement if it is as how you describe it... dead after 7 pm, full of bland complexes and vagrants on the streets. You have some good suggestions. But I'd like to hear about what you think is positive in Miami, because I don't believe it's all crap, even if you think its bad side overcomes the good.

As for the presence of a significant population of Spanish speakers... perhaps it's part of Miami's identity now and what people expect when they go there. In Dubai more than 80% of the population are expatriates, as a national citizen, it annoys me sometimes when I feel like a foreigner in my own city, but it's also how the city grew.

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edwinhm

From your comments I can tell you have some problems with the Miami sub-culture. You seem to be saying that, because there are hispanics in control of the city, the city sucks and you don't want to deal with those hispanics because they are corrupted individuals. I quoted some of your comments below.

Miami is a big city, no different from Chicago, or LA, New York, etc. If you are prejudiced about all Cubans, Puerto Ricans, etc etc etc, you should understand that most of the people in those cultures is a mix, Cubans (black or white) mix with whatever they get the hands on, there is no concept of race. When you mention that Hispanics "hate" other groups, but it's not a big deal, I have never heard of any discrimination, hate crimes, or people being burnt infront of a church, or any KKK-type organization killing some specific national of any origin.

if you haven't noticed Hispanics are not a race but an ethnicity, there are white, black, indian, even Chinese, hispanics, most of them like Salsa, Merengue, all speak spanish, etc etc.

Like it or not, Hispanics are also Americans, serving in Iraq, making this country bigger and better. It's sad to see how many racist people still exists in the 21st century.