The Truth about Miami

Presented by Edgardo A Rodon

The truth about Miami (Part 1 of 14) "Versions of Miami"

• 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.

The truth about Miami (Part 2 of 14) "The Tropical Paradise"

• 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. Miami has the highest rate "per 1000" on AIDS in the country (even more than NY), but doesn't surprise me at all with the lack of education here. 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.

The truth about Miami (Part 3 of 14) "The Traffic"

• 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).

The truth about Miami (Part 4 of 14) "The Customer Service"

• 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 5 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 still feels like part of the United States, unlike Miami-Dade).

The truth about Miami (Part 5 of 14) "The Waste Land"

• 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.

The truth about Miami (Part 6 of 14) "The Downtown"

• 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 truth about Miami (Part 7 of 14) "The Condos"

• 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.

The truth about Miami (Part 8 of 14) "The Skyline"

• 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.

The truth about Miami (Part 9 of 14) "Let's get the f..k out of here"

• An article on [[url=http://www.local10.com]Just News | Miami News, Fort Lauderdale News, Florida News, Weather | WPLG Local 10[/url] 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 truth about Miami (Part 10 of 14) "The Climate"

• 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. The lack of seasons here make this place looks like a pressure cooker the whole year. 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.

The truth about Miami (Part 11 of 14) "The Corruption"

• 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, Honduras, etc, but not in the United States).

The truth about Miami (Part 12 of 14) "The big problem [1]"

• 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, 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. 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.

The truth about Miami (Part 12 of 14) "The big problem [2]"

• 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”.

The truth about Miami (Part 13 of 14) "The Solution"

• 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.

The truth about Miami (Part 14 of 14) "Just in case you will attack me" :)

• 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. PERIOD!