Transit Miami

    Miami Marine Stadium, the topic of a recent article by the Miami Herald profiling 3 forgotten athletic venues in the area…What do you think should be done with the Marine Stadium?

    Image from ImageMD’s Flickr…

After reading Stephen’s comment with regards to my Time Credo Loves Miami article, I realized that perhaps I may have been painting a bit of a rosy portrait of my beloved city. My issues from the Time article come from the fact that Time failed to correctly differentiate between National, State, and Local issues which plague Miami. I could care less what Time Magazine thinks; I was inherently irked though that such a negative piece could make it into the magazine without focusing any attention on the positive changes which have recently come about in Miami. In any case I provided Stephen’s statement below, before my own response (This is not intended as a personal attack on Stephen, but rather I used his contrasting opinion to certify my position against the article):

Stephen:
Not at all, I understand Miami has its share of problems and it is a shame that the majority of the problems you list can be attributed to the elected officials chosen to represent the citizens of the area. The development concerns span across the country, Miami is no better or worse designed than most of the cities across the country or even the state. Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Gainesville, Ft. Lauderdale, etc, are all experiencing the same terrible growth problems as Miami on an equal or even greater scale. The absolute lack of public transportation is a national issue; our entire country’s infrastructure is vehicular dependant due to decades of neglect on other means of transportation. We have very few alternatives and little emphasis is placed on alternative transportation. The racial segregation is no more prevalent in Miami than in any other major city. Sure the disparity between black and white neighborhoods may still exist but Miami is far better racially integrated across all races than most of the cities in the United States. The abundant homeless population is the result of a migration of homeless people to warmer climates (Miami and San Juan, Puerto Rico have a very disproportionate amount of homeless people migrating into the cities, yet I’m sure funding for homeless issues is distributed equally nationally.) Our property taxes are by no means out of control, they actually decreased the millage rate in most cities recently and property values are at a premium because, well face it, the law of supply and demand controls the real estate market. Notice how the so called collapse of the real estate bubble has barely influenced prices in some of the most desired neighborhoods, like Miami Beach. Florida’s population keeps growing annually, so as long as the demand to live in the state is still prevalent, land costs will simply keep rising. Property insurance is spiraling out of control across the state, but, it is by no means the fault of Miami citizens and is a lame argument for the purposes of the Time Magazine article.

Are there problems in Miami, yes, I full heartedly agree with you, but, the Time Magazine article did a pretty poor job of summarizing the real issues we face in Miami placing much of the blame of national and state issues on the municipality. I started this website to address many of your concerns, I agree, Miami’s infrastructure is terrible, but, what do you expect when our state DOT is willing to spend billions to widen avenues in the western part of the county but won’t spend a cent on public transit? When our incoming governor sees nothing wrong with widening the UDB when the southern part of the state is already on the verge of an infrastructure and water crisis? What can be expected of a county commission which is paid a paltry sum for their public work? The education system is dreadful locally, but, our teachers are now faced with a terrible standardized test (F-Can’t) imposed by the state which does little to actually improve the fundamental education our kids our receiving. Now outgoing Governor Bush is also leaving us with the terrible plan of incorporating “majors” into high schools thereby forcing 8^th graders (um, 13 year olds) to choose an area of intended study for the next four years of their lives. All these factors should be taken into account when you analyze the problems which affect Miami and may be extremely evident of some major deficiencies, but, it was incorrect of Time Magazine to solely place the blame for such issues on our municipality.