# USA Sprawl Festival continued: Miami, "a Third World country"



## Bond James Bond (Aug 23, 2002)

Link to the first thread in this series.
Note: Please *do not* reply to this first thread in the series anymore, it's too big. 
USA Sprawl Festival

Or, click on the following links to see just individual cities in that thread:

Kansas City
Some northern Denver suburbs
Albuquerque
Seattle
Las Vegas
Dallas-Fort Worth
Some western & southern Minneapolis suburbs
Orange County, California
Philadelphia
Tucson
Orlando
Northern Virginia/DC
Cleveland
Houston
Northern Atlanta suburbs
Indianapolis
Long Island, New York
Jacksonville
Boston

And the 2nd round ones:

Phoenix-East
Phoenix-South
Phoenix-North
Phoenix-West
Portland
Silicon Valley
Los Angeles
San Bernardino County, California
San Diego - south
San Diego - north
Buffalo
Broward County, Florida
Dallas-Fort Worth II
Riverside County, California
Denver - south suburbs
Orange County II
Bergen and Passaic Counties, New Jersey
Milwaukee
Columbus, Ohio
El Paso, with some Juarez
San Antonio
Detroit
Tampa
Cincinnati
East Bay Area, Kollyfornia
Sacramento, Kollyfornia
Memphis
St. Louis

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*MIAMI*

_''Look at what has happened to Miami. It has become a Third World country. You just pick it up and take it and move it someplace. You would never know you're in the United States of America. You would certainly say you're in a Third World country.''_
*- U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado -*

Well, let's see if he's right. 

Windows Live Local very recently added bird's eye coverage of Miami, so I collected sprawl pics for it right away.

You can these were taken not too long after a hurricane (I forget which one it was) because the damage is quite aparrent in many of these pics.

In particular, you can see blue tarpolins atop many roofs where the wind blew all or parts of people's roofs off. However, I'm still a tad confused, because there seems to be a few houses which appear to have had blue roofs anyway - maybe??

Otherwise, one of the main things I noticed from this sprawl set was how much more red/orange roofs you get in this part of Florida compared to Orlando or Jacksonville. Even Broward County didn't seem to have such a preponderance of red roofs.

Anyway, on to the pics.

Hmm. Doesn't look like a 3rd World country here.
Otherwise I do see 2 houses with blue/hurricane roofs.









If this is a 3rd World country, it looks pretty nice.









Your local favela. 









More slums.









Shanties.









Lots of hurricane damage here. You can tell the older sprawl has more hurricane-damaged roofs.
However, this is one of the ?? ones I mentioned above. Some of these roofs look like they're *supposed* to be blue (???) Can any of our Miami forumers tell me if there are/were a lot of houses in Miami that had blue roofs before the hurricane, or are these ones simply ones where they had to replace the *entire* roof with some temporary blue thingy?









Browsing through Live Local, you see there is just TONS of housing around Miami which looks just like this, and like the pic immediately above.









Just lovely.









I am almost certain I went to this mall the last time I went to Miami in 1982.









Slums and donkey trails.









Business/industrial park.









Office park and apartments.









Red roof city.









Close-up of the houses in the pic above.









Another of the uber-common type, complete with hurricane-damaged roofs. If you want to know what half of metro Miami looks like, this is it.









Newer stuff, with no hurricane damage.









This is one of those new developments on the far western edge of the built-up area (near the Everglades border) where they have to set aside a huge chunk of the development as open water.









More water.









And still more water.









Yay, a shopping center.









Cool development along one of the coastal waterways.









Still more of the ultra-common type, with hurricane damage. But once again, a couple of the houses in this pic look like their roofs are *supposed* to be blue (???)









Close-up of the ultra-common type. My aunt used to live in a house like this in Kendall, except that it had an enclosed pool.


















Typical newer apartments. No hurricane damage.


















Some newer stuff being built along the edge of a mangrove swamp. Note the several houses which appear to be under ankle-deep water!


















Not sprawl. A highrise district near a mall in south Miami. Along a transit stop, too!









This was a bit north of the pic above. It's not sprawl, but it looked cool so I just had to include it. 









Sprawl? Or not sprawl?









OK . . . *now* we're looking at some of those "3rd World" slums. This is a fairly dumpy neighborhood in north Miami. While it certainly isn't attractive, it's a far cry from your typical 3rd World shanty. Sorry Mr Tancredo, you don't know what you're talking about.


















I can't decide if these look cool in a sort-of cheesy way, or if they're just butt-ugly.









Another business/industrial park.









Enough parking?









Freeway, billboard and mobile home park. A photo set of South Florida housing wouldn't be complete without at least one mobile home park.









Definitely not sprawl. But I just couldn't resist. 









More ultra-common stuff, with somewhat bigger lots. And a school.









Sprawl? Or not sprawl?









Ugh.









Cool patterns.









Another shopping center.









Defintely not sprawl. But check out the hurricane damage on the windows!









Houses along the beach. Sprawl? Or not sprawl?









Sprawl? Or not sprawl?









More newer stuff in western Dade County with the big water set-aside areas.









OK, here's a close-up of what I was talking about with the hurricane damage. Most of them are obviously blue tarpolins on people roofs. But the one at the bottom-right almost looks like the roof is *supposed* to be blue. Or do they just have a tarpolin covering the entire roof????









Business park along some water.









More typical apartments.









Another shopping center. Part of the sprawl, of course.









Lovely.









More "3rd World" slums in north Miami.


















Beautiful!!!


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## Bond James Bond (Aug 23, 2002)

Here's a really cool far-away shot they had showing the engineering stuff they have to do to create "land" near the edges of the Everglades.

It's real big so I'll thumbnail it.


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## ROYU (Jul 19, 2004)

I don't see any slums in those pics and Miami is not a third world city there are worst cities in the US not to mention in the real third world countries.
Nice pics Miami has lot of sprawl.


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## ^Anton^ (Jan 1, 2007)

^^
He was being sarcastic...


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## I-275westcoastfl (Feb 15, 2005)

Except this thread didnt even begin to show any of the worse parts of miami.


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## mhays (Sep 12, 2002)

I love these threads. 

You can always tell where the trashy people are, because their neighborhoods have cars on the sidewalks.


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## cheesy bob (Jan 14, 2007)

the Birdseye view on local live is the shit and definitely whoops Google earth

nice thread :banana:


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## TheTramp (Dec 2, 2004)

tancredo doesn't know what the hell he was talking about. he probably has never been to any of the so-called 3rd world countries. that does NOT look anything like what you see in a 3rd world country. anyway, thanks for your magnificent series, they really help show everyone what 99% of US cities look like.


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## Bond James Bond (Aug 23, 2002)

I-275westcoastfl said:


> Except this thread didnt even begin to show any of the worse parts of miami.


I did get 2 shots of the "slums" in north Miami, if you look through the pics.

Here's some additional close-ups of those same areas, showing some very typical street scenes. As far as I know, these are the "bad" areas of Miami. If there are any worse areas than these, I'd be happy to know.

Allapattah









Glenwood Heights









Liberty City









Little Haiti


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## Bond James Bond (Aug 23, 2002)

Compare with your typical favela in Rio.



















And some slums in Bombay:










Liberty City is clean, wealthy, neat and tidy compared to those places.


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## alex3000 (Oct 20, 2002)

Nice.

The city does look somewhat ... hhhmmm... well, not as wealthy as the rest of the cities shown on your threads.

Maybe it's just the vegetation... I don't know.


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## jtownman (Jan 31, 2003)

People have got to be kidding in acting like Miami isn't or doesn't look as wealthy as other cities! This makes me laugh, Anyone of you go into the Miami area and tell me you don't see the wealth, then your blind!


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## jtownman (Jan 31, 2003)

Also people, check out the densitys of Miamis METRO...its pretty damn dense. It stacks up there with chicago. Miami suburbs build much more dense then most cities!


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## KGB89 (Feb 16, 2006)

Its definately not as bad as real "third world" countries, but there are some parts of it that I'd rather not see up close.


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## oliver999 (Aug 4, 2006)

wow,are these all took on helicopter? great stuff


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## Bond James Bond (Aug 23, 2002)

^
No, they were taken by airplane.

KGB, where is that first pic you showed? I guess I missed that area when I was looking for "slum" shots before.


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## tmac14wr (Oct 12, 2004)

People are definitely greatly mistaken if they don't think Miami is as wealthy as some of the other cities shown here. The thing about Miami is that the financial status of its citizens seems to be very extreme (extremely poor or extremely rich). There are a great deal of people who live in poverty, and many who live in EXTREME poverty, possibly some of the worst poverty in the country at times. However at the same time there is also some of the most wealthy people and the most valuable real estate in the country. I had a friend who visited Miami not too long ago and was in one of the wealthier areas and she said the ONLY cars she saw parked outside of hotels were at least a Mercedes-caliber car, but most were either Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Bentleys, or Rolls-Royces. She also saw a Ferrari Enzo and a Mercedes-McLaren SLR..and this was while she was in Miami for 3 days.

However, I will admit that many of these pics do show a run-down Miami...however, do remember that these pictures were taken after a hurricane so things are going obviously not look in pristine condition.


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## Chicagoago (Dec 2, 2005)

Is one of those highrises that was damaged in the picture 1221 Brickell? I took over the accounting management of that building a few months ago, and I know we have a few million in repairs we're working on at the moment. LOTS of window damage at the building from Wilma that's still being paid for.


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## KGB89 (Feb 16, 2006)

Bond James Bond said:


> ^
> No, they were taken by airplane.
> 
> KGB, where is that first pic you showed? I guess I missed that area when I was looking for "slum" shots before.


I can't remember where that exact one was, but there are a few similar trailer parks around the region. There are a lot around Rt. 9 near Allapattah. I'm starting to think they might just be abandoned or severely damaged by some sort of hurricane, rather than being genuinely "slummy".

Either way, for a city that makes as much as it does on tourism, its hard to understand how they wouldn't be able to get rid of these places entirely.


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## leftcoaster (Oct 5, 2004)

tmac14wr said:


> People are definitely greatly mistaken if they don't think Miami is as wealthy as some of the other cities shown here. The thing about Miami is that the financial status of its citizens seems to be very extreme (extremely poor or extremely rich). There are a great deal of people who live in poverty, and many who live in EXTREME poverty, possibly some of the worst poverty in the country at times. However at the same time there is also some of the most wealthy people and the most valuable real estate in the country. I had a friend who visited Miami not too long ago and was in one of the wealthier areas and she said the ONLY cars she saw parked outside of hotels were at least a Mercedes-caliber car, but most were either Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Bentleys, or Rolls-Royces. She also saw a Ferrari Enzo and a Mercedes-McLaren SLR..and this was while she was in Miami for 3 days.
> 
> However, I will admit that many of these pics do show a run-down Miami...however, do remember that these pictures were taken after a hurricane so things are going obviously not look in pristine condition.


There is crazy, crazy money in South Florida. The cocaine trade is verrry profitable!


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## Bond James Bond (Aug 23, 2002)

KGB89 said:


> Its definately not as bad as real "third world" countries, but there are some parts of it that I'd rather not see up close.


OK, I found where this is. It's here:
http://local.live.com/default.aspx?...&lvl=1&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=9310392
^
It's a very small trailer park nestled amid some industrial and commercia areas. It isn't remotely typical of the poor areas of Miami.

From scrolling through WLL, it looks like most of the poor areas of Miami are just run-down bungalows like the ones I showed above - which is pretty typical of poor areas in Sunbelt cities (and many non-Sunbelt cities, too). Heck, I can show you areas of Tacoma which are like that.


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## somelc (Nov 15, 2007)

*FOR ME, HORRENDOUS THAN RIO FAVELA​*


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## CRAROD1 (Oct 31, 2007)

The only reason Tancredo said it looks like a Third World country was because of his anti-immigrant ways of thinking.

He knows Miami is a city with a huge hispanic population. He probably heard Spanish everywhere the last time he visited the city and thought he was in Cuba.:nuts:


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## philadweller (Oct 30, 2003)

You havent been to miami since 1982. I have a hard time trusting your opinion.


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## philadweller (Oct 30, 2003)

I live in Florida and think it may be the trashiest and sleaziest state in the country. People park their monster trucks in front of their trailer sized houses without realizing how aesthetically unpleasing it is.


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## webeagle12 (Oct 1, 2007)

philadweller said:


> I live in Florida and think it may be the trashiest and sleaziest state in the country. People park their monster trucks in front of their trailer sized houses without realizing how aesthetically unpleasing it is.


miami looks pretty good but its not anywhere near "Third World Country". Not a chance.


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## CRAROD1 (Oct 31, 2007)

philadweller said:


> I live in Florida and think it may be the trashiest and sleaziest state in the country. People park their monster trucks in front of their trailer sized houses without realizing how aesthetically unpleasing it is.


That´s probably right, but it´s not a third world city at all....

In a Third World city most of the people wouldn't even have a monster truck...


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## Phthalm (Jun 27, 2007)

CRAROD1 said:


> That´s probably right, but it´s not a third world city at all....
> 
> In a Third World city most of the people wouldn't even have a monster truck...


Probably not since they wouldn´t have a car either..


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## fcarvall (Nov 6, 2004)

Third world?! What are you, like 100?! No one uses that terminology anymore. Get with the times, developing world, emerging world.

Third world terminology went with the Soviet Union, which was the Second World.


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## LMCA1990 (Jun 18, 2005)

Miami's just like every other major US city. It's very beautiful but it has it's ugly areas.


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## fettekatz (Oct 17, 2007)

Miami has a very nice sprawl... from above it looks even better than many other cities sprawl I've seen so far. Of course I wouldn't like to live there, but that's another question


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## ranny fash (Apr 24, 2005)

bond james bond - always interesting to look at these threads you make, thanks dude.

third world tho, hahahaha. seriously what is that tancredo guy talking about? 

i've spent ages looking at cities around the world on google earth (particularly in the uk and us). ive noticed some cities in the US that do appear to be very run down. these include Newark, NJ, Modesto, CA (looks like an absolute shit-tip from above), Detroit (of course, lol), and a few others like East st. louis, camden and gary which are pegged onto much bigger cities which also have numerous grim-looking neighbourhoods.

Large swathes of Glasgow, Manchester, and Liverpool also appear to be in a similar state. 

for some reason i just thought it was worth mentioning these things. later.


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## globill (Dec 4, 2005)

somehow I feel the need to but on mosquito repellent after viewing this thread......


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## kevinkagy (Sep 5, 2005)

Miami definitely has some of the nicest suburban sprawls in the U.S. with its designs, but skyscrapers are much better. Although those pictures were post-hurricanes and things look a bit battered, Miami does not look like that anymore and things are cleaned up, than what those images show. And MIAMI IS IN NO WAY "THIRD-WORLD!" A third-world country would not have as many skyscrapers, mansions, financial headquarters, malls, museums, one of the busiest airports in the world (MIA), busy seaport, tourism, and tons of expensive high-rise apartment buildings that Miami has. Get over it, Miami is not a "third-world country".


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## dios tanatos (Jun 13, 2006)

Miami's sprawl looks just like any other. It's not slummy, it's simply BORING.

The houses in Rio's favelas at least have different shapes, sizes & colors. No a/c, though... :nono:


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## -KwK345- (May 23, 2007)

somelc said:


> *FOR ME, HORRENDOUS THAN RIO FAVELA​*


That looks beautiful to me.
------------------------------------
Great pics kevinkagy!


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## Bond James Bond (Aug 23, 2002)

fcarvall said:


> Third world?! What are you, like 100?! No one uses that terminology anymore. Get with the times, developing world, emerging world.
> 
> Third world terminology went with the Soviet Union, which was the Second World.


I was making fun of Tom Tancredo. Don't blame me, he's the one who said it!


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## city_thing (May 25, 2006)

I still don't see why Will Smith felt the need to write a whole song about Miami...

Does he like urban sprawl too...?


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## Comfortably Numb (Dec 19, 2007)

Well, firstly Tancredo is an idiot.

Secondly, nowhere in Miami is truly "third world". There are some run down areas, but they're no worse than any other US city. I think Miami gets a bad rep because of the high % of Hispanic immigrants, to be honest. One thing Miami can be is deceptive though. What I mean by that is that if you're an outsider, you may not know where the "dangerous" areas are as a) they are very easy to stray into and b) everywhere here looks so tropical (there are even palm trees in the bad neighborhoods). so to someone coming from a cold, grimy, industrial city up north, all of Miami may look like paradise, at first glance.

My only real problem with Miami isn't to do with it being third world, or over run with immigrants....it's the sprawl (as shown in this thread). Miami (and the South Florida metro area as a whole) has expanded at an alarming rate over the last 30 years or so. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that any real thought was given to transport, i.e. there's no real mass transit alternative here and the traffic is becoming impossible to deal with in many areas.

Add to that, the fact that the "sprawl" lacks parks and is extremely un-walkable (but this is the trend in many American cities).

I'm not a fan of urban sprawl like this. I find it faceless, boring and devoid of any real character, soul or community spirit.

On the plus side, you can choose from one of the many condos here, complete with a fantastic view -- a very non-urban sprawl way of living.


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## Comfortably Numb (Dec 19, 2007)

city_thing said:


> I still don't see why Will Smith felt the need to write a whole song about Miami...
> 
> Does he like urban sprawl too...?


I don't think there were any references to urban sprawl in his 1998 smash hit:

_Party in the city where the heat is on
All night on the beach till the break of dawn
Welcome to Miami
Buenvenidos a Miami
Bouncin' in the club where the heat is on
All night on the beach till the break of dawn
Im goin' to Miami
Welcome to Miami_






I think he mostly stayed in Miami Beach, mostly.


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