Miami

• 1. Introduction

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  Miami sits on a narrow strip of Florida coast where the Everglades press in from the west and Biscayne Bay shimmers to the east, a city barely 6 feet above sea level that somehow grew into the fifth-largest metropolitan area in the southeastern United States. On the 28th of July, 1896, it was officially incorporated with a population of just over 300 people. By 2020, more than 442,000 people lived within its city limits, and the surrounding metropolitan area counted nearly 6.4 million residents. That is a transformation so swift that Miami's own residents gave it a name: the Magic City. What made this particular patch of subtropical coastline explode into a global financial hub, the self-proclaimed Capital of Latin America, and the world's busiest cruise port? And why, beneath the glittering skyline of more than 300 high-rises, does a city of such staggering wealth rank among the highest poverty rates of any large American city? Those contradictions are baked into Miami's limestone foundation, and the answers reach back far further than most visitors ever imagine.

• 2. Before the City

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  A village dating to roughly 500-600 BCE once stood at the mouth of the Miami River, home to the Tequesta tribe, who would occupy the surrounding area for around 2,000 years before European contact. In 1566, admiral Pedro Menendez de Aviles, Florida's first governor, claimed the land for Spain. A Spanish mission followed just one year later. Spain held Florida for centuries, interrupted only by a British interlude from 1763 to 1783, before finally ceding the territory to the United States in 1821 in exchange for American recognition of Spanish sovereignty in Texas and the resolution of a border dispute along the Sabine River. By 1836, the U.S. Army had built Fort Dallas on the banks of the Miami River, drawing the area into the violent conflict of the Second Seminole War. The Tequesta themselves did not survive to see any of it. It is believed the entire tribe migrated to Cuba by the mid-1700s, leaving behind a name derived from Mayaimi, the historic designation for Lake Okeechobee and the people who had lived along its shores.

• 3. A Woman's City

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  Julia Tuttle occupies a singular position in American urban history: Miami is noted as the only major city in the United States founded by a woman. A local citrus grower and wealthy Cleveland native, Tuttle owned the land upon which Miami was built. In the late 19th century, the area was known as Biscayne Bay Country, and observers described it as a promising wilderness and one of the finest building sites in Florida. What turned promise into reality was a catastrophe elsewhere. The Great Freeze of 1894-1895 wiped out crops across Florida. Miami's citrus survived. Tuttle seized the moment, convincing railroad magnate Henry Flagler to extend his Florida East Coast Railway south to the region. That deal earned her the title of the mother of Miami. The city was officially incorporated on the 28th of July, 1896. Among the workers who built the roads, hotels, and infrastructure of this brand-new city, Bahamian immigrants formed a critical portion of the labor force. During the early 20th century, migrants from the Bahamas and African Americans together constituted 40 percent of Miami's population, a foundational contribution that shaped the city's multicultural character long before Miami knew what it would become.

• 4. Race and the Boom Years

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  Miami's prosperity in the 1920s arrived packaged with a brutal racial order. H. Leslie Quigg, the city's chief of police at the time, did not hide his membership in the Ku Klux Klan, nor did many of his officers. Quigg, according to historical accounts, personally and publicly beat a colored bellboy to death for speaking directly to a white woman. When landlords began renting homes to African Americans around Avenue J, a gang of white men with torches marched through the neighborhood and warned residents to move or be bombed. The city's economy in this period rested on seasonal tourism and construction work, a volatile combination of low-wage, temporary employment that deepened income inequality even as Miami marketed itself as a booming leisure destination. Then came three consecutive blows: the collapse of the 1920s Florida land boom, the hurricane of 1926, and the Great Depression of the 1930s. By the time World War II began, Miami's position on the southern Florida coast made it a critical base for U.S. defense against German submarines, swelling the population to 172,172 by 1940. The city's nickname, the Magic City, had already been coined by winter visitors who marveled at how dramatically the place changed from one year to the next.

• 5. Latin America's Capital

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  After Fidel Castro rose to power in Cuba following the Revolution in 1959, many wealthy Cubans sought refuge in Miami, fundamentally reshaping the city's demographic identity. By 1970, the Census Bureau reported that 45.3 percent of Miami's population was Hispanic. That share would only climb. In 1985, Miami elected its first Cuban-born mayor, Xavier Suarez. By 2020-70.2 percent of the city's residents identified as Hispanic or Latino. Cuban immigrants in the 1960s brought with them the Cuban sandwich, medianoche, Cuban espresso, Bistec de palomilla, and croquetas, all of which grew into symbols of the city's food culture. Landmark spots like the Versailles restaurant in Little Havana became institutions. Today, Spanish is spoken at home by 70 percent of the city's residents, making Miami the second-largest American city with a Spanish-speaking majority, after El Paso, Texas. The city is also the largest American city with a Cuban-American plurality. Over 1,400 multinational firms have set up operations in Miami, many specifically to manage their Latin American business, including Walmart. The metropolitan area logged a gross domestic product of $533.674 billion in 2023, the largest urban economy in Florida by a wide margin. In a 2018 UBS study of 77 world cities, Miami ranked as the third-richest city globally in purchasing power.

• 6. Water, Rock, and Rising Seas

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  Beneath Miami lies a layer of ancient limestone called Miami oolite, no more than 50 feet thick, formed when sea levels were roughly 25 feet higher than today during the Sangamonian Stage, which began about 130,000 years ago. Southern Florida was submerged under a shallow sea. By around 15,000 years ago, glaciation had dropped sea levels 300 to 350 feet below current levels, exposing the seafloor. The sea stabilized at today's level about 4,000 years ago, leaving the land barely above water. That same aquifer beneath the plain, the Biscayne Aquifer, now supplies drinking water to most of the Miami metropolitan area. It comes so close to the surface near Miami Springs and Hialeah that digging more than 15 to 20 feet anywhere in the city hits water, which is why Miami's mass transit systems are elevated or at-grade rather than underground. A 2020 report by Resources for the Future identified Miami as one of the cities in the world most vulnerable to storm damage and coastal flooding from global sea level rise. Projections estimate Miami may face flooding 21 to 40 inches higher by 2070. Miami Beach alone has invested $500 million in protective measures for roads, buildings, and water systems. Real estate prices within the city already reflect this pressure, with properties at higher elevations commanding a measurable premium over lower-lying parcels.

• 7. The Port and the Skyline

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  PortMiami has held the title of the world's busiest cruise port, measured in both passenger traffic and cruise lines, for well over a decade. In 2017, the port served more than 5.3 million cruise passengers. It sits on 518 acres, operates seven passenger terminals, and handles cargo as well, importing more than 9 million tons in 2017. Miami is also home to the headquarters of Carnival Cruise Line, Celebrity Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania Cruises, and Royal Caribbean International, the largest concentration of cruise line headquarters in the world. The 2014 opening of the Port of Miami Tunnel, connecting the MacArthur Causeway directly to the port, eased the flow of that traffic through the city. Above the waterline, Miami's skyline has grown to more than 300 high-rises, 70 of which exceed 491 feet. The tallest is Panorama Tower at 868 feet. During the mid-2000s, Miami witnessed its largest real estate boom since the 1920s land boom, with well over a hundred high-rise projects approved, though only 50 were actually built. The resulting Manhattanization of neighborhoods like Downtown, Brickell, and Edgewater drove population growth that pushed the city's headcount past 400,000 for the first time in the early 2010s. Brickell Avenue alone holds the largest concentration of international banks in the United States, anchoring Miami's role as a gateway for capital moving between North and South America.

• 8. Culture, Sport, and Inequality

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  The Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, which opened in the Edgewater neighborhood of Midtown, is the second-largest performing arts center in the United States after Lincoln Center in New York City. The annual Calle Ocho Festival, running since 1978, is the largest Latin music festival in the country. Wynwood, a former warehouse district in northern Miami, has become an international art destination anchored by ten galleries and a large outdoor mural project. Miami also hosts annual events including Art Basel, the South Beach Wine and Food Festival, and Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Miami, which draws visitors to the Wynwood Art District. At the same time, the 2012 census placed Miami fourth among large U.S. cities in the percentage of family incomes below the federal poverty line, behind only Detroit, Cleveland, and Cincinnati. Miami is also among a very small number of American cities whose local government has declared bankruptcy, which occurred in 2001. The non-Hispanic Black population, which peaked at nearly 90,000 in 1990 and made up almost a quarter of the city, had fallen to 52,447 by the 2020 census, a decline driven in part by high costs and gentrification in neighborhoods like Liberty City and Little Haiti. In 2022, a Point-in-Time count found 3,440 homeless people in Miami-Dade County, with 591 unsheltered individuals on the streets within the city limits. Miami will serve as one of eleven U.S. host cities for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, a moment the city will arrive at carrying all of these contradictions with it.