he Town Square Neighborhood Development Corporation revealed its plan to transform downtown Miami from the adorably gritty urban pocket it is today into a tourist-friendly strolling path with green spaces around every corner. If it comes to fruition, we'll all be skipping our way from the new Downtown Museum Park, past the Arsht Center, all the way up to Overtown, passing classy boutiques and eateries as we go.
There's just one tiny problem: There's no funding to make it happen.
No one's ponying up the dough to buy the land where all these changes would occur, making this an "aspirational" plan, according to the Miami Herald. (One could argue that also makes it an "aspirational" piece of news.)
Still, if imagining all the awesome things we could do in Miami with unlimited funds is the new planking, we want in. The TSNDC limited its dreams to parks and spendy spots. But when you see our fantasy plans for downtown, we think you'll agree that ours is the Future Miami to which we should all aspire.
A theme park
We're sick of having to drive to Orlando or Tampa every time we need an adrenaline rush that doesn't involve drugs or risky sex. Our modest proposal: MiamiLand, a South Florida-themed amusement park. Just picture it: Coasters named The Hurricane and Chonga Express, live dolphin and alligator shows, churros and fried-plantain-on-a-stick at every food stand.
Metrorail? Try MetroTubes
You can't revitalize downtown without revamping the city's public transit. Metrorail's limited scope has also limited its usefulness to downtown citizens. (And that time one of the cars fell off the rail can't have helped ridership.) We suggest scrapping Metrorail altogether, and installing instead a series of tubes, like on The Jetsons. Step inside, push a button, and get sucked directly into the place you want to be like an old-school drive-thru bank capsule. The technology for this must exist, and if it doesn't, we have unlimited dream money to fund the research until it does.
Urban, organic marijuana farm
Talk about your green spaces! Har har. But seriously, folks. If there's one thing the hip foodies of today love more than local, organic produce, it's weed. A pot farm set in the middle of downtown is basically the holy grail of the sustainable food trend. Residents could even join a CSA, eagerly anticipating which new strains they'll receive every two weeks. We suggest setting this up directly between the new art museum and the Arsht for unmatched, enhanced cultural experiences.
DecoJetPacks
Remember what we said about MetroTubes? Scratch that. What we really want is rent-by-the-hour jet packs -- just like the DecoBikes on the beach, except instead of bikes, you get flying machines. Our vision of Miami's future just isn't complete without dozens of citizens rocketeering between the skyscrapers.
A Fountain of Youth
In Future Miami, South Florida is no longer the place where old folks retire to die. It's where they retire ... to live. Ponce de Leon sought the Fountain of Youth centuries ago; in our vision, our obscenely well-funded scientists make his dream a reality. Just think of all the health tourism dollars the fountain would bring in. Plus, we'd never have to look at another saggy, wrinkled ass on the beach.
A force field
Let's get real for a second. All this development is going to displace a lot of people. Where are they going to go? How will they live? Will they be able to feed their families? We don't know the answers to any of these questions; all we know is, they're not in our Miami fantasyland. So we're gonna need a force field to keep them from returning to their former homes and making a scene. Sad, impoverished former residents would really kill our organic weed high, y'know?
Light sabers
We're not sure exactly how these fit in just yet. But: light sabers!
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