To outsiders, Miami is South Beach. Bikinis, big hair, big hotels. To locals, the beaches are what the Meatpacking District and SoHo are for New Yorkers: tourist destinations. The real action goes on across Biscayne Bay in the city proper. In the past, it was New York that had it all: food, art, music, cool. Recently, though, everything has started to shift south. And now urban Miami is America’s most dynamic city, a place that’s being constantly revitalised by waves of newcomers from southern Europe, the US West Coast, Latin America… Everywhere you look, something new has opened or just been restored to its former glory. David Beckham’s new stadium has been given the green light. The World Cup is coming. Formula 1 is here. But more than anything else, there is an air of optimism about the place. Come now and catch it on the up and up.
By Jane Moggio. Jane is currently a resident of Miami and is working on her first novel, Fed to the Alligators, a humorous account of a New Yorker surviving the wild Miami terrain and its inhabitants
