(Drivebycuriosity) - My wife and I are traveling again. We started our travel in Miami, where we stayed 6 nights. The city is subtropical metropolis, a major harbor, a financial center and a
tourist attraction. The city is famous for her hip life style
influenced by Latin America & the nearby Caribbean.
As usual we hiked a lot and we discovered that Miami is a patchwork of very different cities. We stayed in the financial district, called Brickel (named after some of the city founders who became real estate moguls). This area looks like a tropical Manhattan with a concentration of elegant skyscrapers. Walking south we experienced a sleepy district with lush parks and mansions. Hiking north the classy city changed suddenly into a huge area of waste land filled with construction places. Further north we went through an area, which my American wife calls "low income area", for me it looked like a slum. Behind that we arrived in the Wynwood district, a bohemian neighborhood in the north of the city.
Apparently relative low rents & real estate prices attracted a lot
of artists and then art galleries, restaurants, bars & breweries
followed. Wynwoods´s gentrification created wonders of street art (here my post culture).
Miami proper just about 400,000 residents, but the metropolitan area, the sprawl, is much bigger
and growing explosively. Miami and its metropolitan area grew from
just over 1,000 residents to nearly 5.5 million residents in just 110
years (1896–2006 wikipedia). Today the city is still a boom town and we could spot a lot construction places all over the city, even more than in booming Manhattan.
High rises, tropical vegetation and the waterfront combine into a fascinating cityscape.
Above the Echo Brickel, a residential building in the fancy financial district, which offers luxury condos.
These colorful buildings suit well for the city`s tropical environment.
Above the Metromover, a driverless rail bound car, which transported us for free from the Financial district to the north and vice versa.
Mecca Of Art
The city is home to Art Basel Miami, a gigantic gigant show, which apparently is fostering the gentrification of city, shaping her into a mecca for art lovers. We visited 2 of the museums, the Institute of Contemporary Art & the Pérez Art Museum (here my blogposts Contemporary Perez)
Miami is also a center of street art. My wife and I stayed there some days ago and were impressed by the onslaught of graffiti & murals. The city was preparing for Art Basel Miami in mid December. Obviously this spectacle also attracts street artists from all over the world. I haave never seen so much and so impressive street art on one place (here my post driveby ).
Coconut Palms & Iguanas
A short bus ride brought us to Miami Beach - a town on a long stripe of land very close to Miami - where we noticed the active beach life beach and even some beach romance.
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