Miami
Miami is a major city in southeastern Florida, in the United States. It is the county seat of Miami-Dade County. Miami is a gamma world city with an estimated population of 404,048. It is the largest city within the South Florida metropolitan area, which is the largest metropolitan area in the Southeastern United States with 5.5 million people. Miami and its surrounding cities make up the fifth largest urban area in the United States. As of 2005, the United Nations estimates that the Miami Urban Agglomeration is the fourth largest in the United States, and the 44th largest in the world.
Miami’s importance as an international financial and cultural center has elevated Miami to the status of world city. Because of Miami’s cultural and linguistic ties to North, South, and Central America, as well as the Caribbean, Miami is many times referred to as “The Gateway of the Americas”. Florida’s large Spanish-speaking population and strong economic ties to Latin America also make Miami and the surrounding region an important financial center of the Hispanic world.
Miami is also home to one of the largest, most influential ports in the United States, the Port of Miami. The port is often called the “Cruise Capital of the World” and the “Cargo Gateway of the Americas”. It has retained its status as the number one cruise/passenger port in the world for well over a decade accommodating the largest cruise ships and the major cruise lines.
As of 2007, Miami is undergoing a massive building boom that ranks second worldwide (and first in the United States) for the most buildings under construction that will be over 492 feet (150 m), with over 24 of such buildings currently under construction. Miami’s skyline also currently ranks third in the U.S. behind Chicago and New York City (and 18th in the world) according to the 2006 Almanac of Architecture and Design. Including other nearby neighborhoods and cities, the Miami area has over 80 highrise towers under construction, such as the Biscayne Wall in Downtown Miami, a row of skyscrapers being built along the west side of Biscayne Boulevard. Miami currently has the five tallest skyscrapers in the state of Florida with the tallest being the Four Seasons Hotel & Tower.
At only 35.68 square miles (92 km²) of land area, Miami has the smallest land area of any major U.S. city with a metro area of at least 2.5 million people. The city proper is home to less than 1 in 13 residents of the South Florida Metro Area. Additionally, 52% of Miami-Dade County’s population doesn't live in any incorporated city. Miami is the only major city in the United States bordered by two national parks, Everglades National Park on the west, and Biscayne National Park on the east.
Miami and its metro area grew from just over one thousand residents to nearly five and a half million residents in just 110 years (1896-2006). The city’s nickname, The Magic City, comes from this rapid growth. Winter visitors remarked that the city grew so much from one year to the next that it was like magic. Miami is the only major city in the United States founded by a woman, Julia Tuttle.
History
Miami was officially incorporated as a city on July 28, 1896, though the area was first inhabited for more than a thousand years by the Tequesta Indians and was claimed for Spain in 1566 by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. A Spanish mission was established a year later in 1567. In 1836 Fort Dallas was built and subsequently, was a site of fighting during the Second Seminole War. In the 1920s, Miami prospered through the Florida Land Boom of the 1920's with an increase in population and infrastructure. By 1940, 172,172 people lived in the city and Miami had grown to become a large, growing city.
The Miami area was better known as “Biscayne Bay Country” in the early years of its growth. Some published reports described the area as a promising wilderness. The area was also characterized as “one of the finest building sites in Florida.” However, the Great Freeze of 1894 changed all that, and the crops of the Miami area were the only ones in Florida that survived. Julia Tuttle, a local citrus grower, convinced Henry Flagler, a railroad tycoon, to expand his Florida East Coast Railroad to Miami. On July 28, 1896, Miami was officially incorporated as a city with a population of just over 300.
Miami prospered during the 1920s but weakened after the collapse of the Florida Land Boom of the 1920s, the 1926 Miami Hurricane and the Great Depression in the 1930s. When World War II began, Miami, well-situated due to its location on the southern coast of Florida, played an important role in the battle against German submarines. The war helped to expand Miami’s population to almost half a million. After Fidel Castro rose to power in 1959, many Cubans sought refuge in Miami, further increasing the population. In the 1980s and 1990s, various crises struck South Florida, among them the Arthur McDuffie beating and the subsequent riot, drug wars, Hurricane Andrew, and the Elián González uproar. Miami remains a major international financial and cultural center.
Geography
Miami and its suburbs are located on a broad plain between the Florida Everglades to the west and Biscayne Bay to the east that also extends from Florida Bay north to Lake Okeechobee. The elevation of the area never rises above 40 ft (12 m) and averages at around 6 ft (2 m) above mean sea level in most neighborhoods, especially near the coast. The highest undulations are found along the coastal Miami Rock Ridge, whose substrate underlies most of the eastern Miami metropolitan region. The main portion of the city lies on the shores of Biscayne Bay which contains several hundred natural and artificially-created barrier islands, the largest of which contains the city of Miami Beach and its famous South Beach district. The Gulf Stream, a warm ocean current, runs northward just 15 miles (24.1 km) off the coast, allowing the city's climate to stay warm and mild all year.
Road and rail
Miami is the southern terminus of Amtrak's Atlantic Coast services, with its final station located in the suburb of Hialeah, Florida.
Miami-Dade County is served by four Interstate Highways (I-75, I-95, I-195, I-395) and several U.S. Highways including U.S. Route 1, U.S. Route 27, U.S. Route 41, and U.S. Route 441. For information on the street grid, see Miami-Dade County, Florida#Street grid. Some of the major Florida State Roads (and their common names) serving the county are:
- SR 112 (Airport Expressway) Downtown to MIA
- SR 821 (The HEFT or Homestead Extension of the Florida Turnpike: SR 91/Miami Gardens to U.S. Route 1/Florida City)
- SR 826 (Palmetto Expressway) Golden Glades Interchange to U.S. Route 1/Kendall
- SR 836 (Dolphin Expressway) Downtown to Turnpike via MIA
- SR 874 (Don Shula Expressway) 826/Bird Road to 878
- SR 878 (Snapper Creek Expressway) Kendall to Turnpike/Homestead
- SR 924 (Gratigny Parkway) Miami Lakes to Opa-locka
In 2007, Miami was identified as having the rudest drivers in the United States, the second year in a row to have been cited, in a poll commissioned by automobile club AutoVantage.
Miami is also consistently ranked as one of the most dangerous cities in the United States for pedestrians.
Miami in popular culture
There are many television shows set in Miami. The controversial Emmy winning drama Nip/Tuck, CBS's CSI: Miami, and Showtime's Dexter all take place in Miami. The Jackie Gleason Show was taped in Miami Beach from 1964 to 1970. The NBC show Good Morning, Miami was fictionally based around the workings of a Miami television station. The popular sitcoms The Golden Girls and Empty Nest, as well as the detective series Surfside 6 and Miami Vice were also based in the Miami area. Keeping with its modern music tradition, the city has recently hosted the 2004 and 2005 MTV Video Music Awards. A recent show to be set in Miami is the USA Network's Burn Notice, which is filmed on location and in studios located in Miami.
In the mid-2000s, Miami started to become a popular backdrop for reality television shows. Reality programming set in the city include the TLC show Miami Ink; Discovery Channel's After Dark; Animal Planet's Miami Animal Police; MTV's 8th & Ocean, Making Menudo, the fourth season of Making the Band, Room Raiders; The Real World: Miami, and The X Effect; VH1's Hogan Knows Best; TruTV's Bounty Girls: Miami; and the third season of Bravo's Top Chef.
Video games Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories take place in Vice City a fictional city inspired by Miami, including some of the same architecture and geography. There were also people and gangsters in the game who speak Haitian Creole and Spanish.
Miami has acted as the backdrop for several movies, including There's Something About Mary, Wild Things, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Bad Boys & Bad Boys II, Transporter 2, The Birdcage, The Substitute, Blow, True Lies, Reno 911!: Miami, Quick Pick, Miami Vice (based on the 1980s television series of the same name), Cocaine Cowboys, 1983's Scarface, and the James Bond films Goldfinger, Thunderball, and Casino Royale.
Miami is a center for Latin television and film production. As a result, many Spanish-language programs are filmed in the many television production studios, predominantly in Hialeah and Doral. This includes gameshows, variety shows, news programs, and telenovelas like Morelia and La Mujer de Mi Vida. Arguably, the most famous Miami-filmed programs are Sábado Gigante, a Saturday night variety show seen throughout the United States, South America and Europe, and the daytime talk shows Cristina Saralegui and El Gordo y la Flaca.
This article is issued under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from entry Wikipedia: "English".
