Vanessa Mills regularly drives her black Jeep to places in Miami not hospitable to a lone woman, or a lone man, for that matter: a trash-pocked lot on NW 17th Avenue, a dilapidated wood-frame house on 81st Street, a garage behind a mostly vacant strip center. Mills will park and…
Standing in a dark suit during an Oval Office ceremony on May 29 with his brother Jeb at his side, President George Bush announced that the federal government would rescue Big Cypress National Preserve from ruin by buying private mineral rights for $120 million from the majority owner of those…
Jorge Mursuli has carved out a career in Miami as a tireless defender of personal freedoms and free speech. He is the former director of SAVE Dade, a gay-rights group; a board member of the Miami-Dade County Community Relations Board; and the current director of the civil rights group People…
It’s Saturday afternoon, October 5, just before the start of the inaugural Grand Prix Americas, the brand-new ultra-chic three-day motorsport extravaganza that commandeered the streets of downtown Miami last weekend. The heat’s unbearable on this stretch of Biscayne Boulevard — from NE Third to NE Sixth. Curvy, Latina TV actress…
Charts Miami Neighborhood Map Lawsuits Galore The Miami Index Miami’s Brain Matter Last week Miami Mayor Manny Diaz unveiled an assortment of proposals he hopes will reduce poverty in his city. Not end poverty, just reduce it. This wasn’t exactly a rousing declaration of war, and it was 30 years…
Charts Miami Neighborhood Map Lawsuits Galore The Miami Index Miami’s Brain Matter Surely by now someone somewhere in Miami’s bureaucracy must have drafted a war plan to attack the city’s outrageous poverty, right? In fact the Community Development Department (CDD) did just that several years before the 2000 U.S. Census…
Charts Miami Neighborhood Map Lawsuits Galore The Miami Index Miami’s Brain Matter Naomi wouldn’t be quite so desperate now if she hadn’t spent her rent money to bury her mother. But what choice did she have? Naomi is sure her 85-year-old mother, Rosalia, could have lived longer if she’d been…
Charts Miami Neighborhood Map Lawsuits Galore The Miami Index Miami’s Brain Matter It’s the women who keep ramshackle, decaying Overtown held together as it waits (and waits) for the revitalization promised almost since the day it was destroyed. And nobody works harder or longer than the grandmothers, the elders who…
Charts Miami Neighborhood Map Lawsuits Galore The Miami Index Miami’s Brain Matter A small misunderstanding about Medicaid and Medicare coverage touched off a crisis in Ofelia Garcia’s world. The money involved (less than $100 per month) would have elicited no more than a shrug from some people. But it was…
Charts Miami Neighborhood Map Lawsuits Galore The Miami Index Miami’s Brain Matter Ted Lucas grew up in Carol City, a black neighborhood close to the Broward County line. His family was poor but his athletic talent helped him win a scholarship to Chaminade-Madonna College Preparatory School in Hollywood, though his…
Charts Miami Neighborhood Map Lawsuits Galore The Miami Index Miami’s Brain Matter Miami underwent significant change between 1990 and 2000, not least of which was the city’s poverty rate: It grew with such exuberance that Miami climbed from fourth to first place among the nation’s most impoverished big cities. That’s…
Charts Miami Neighborhood Map Lawsuits Galore The Miami Index Miami’s Brain Matter Yes, Miami is a trash-strewn city of desperate extremes, plagued by inadequate educational opportunities, job prospects, and public services. It’s a city fragmented by racism, corruption, and apathy. But Miami is also a city of endless reinvention, a…
Charts Miami Neighborhood Map Are You Poor? Do the Math Miami Portrait Top-Ten Poorest Cities Poverty Quiz Good Surveys Make Good Neighbors Compare & Contrast American Cities When it comes to fame and glory for having produced world-class poverty, Miami is no overnight success. The recent distinction bestowed by the…
Charts Miami Neighborhood Map Are You Poor? Do the Math Miami Portrait Top-Ten Poorest Cities Poverty Quiz Good Surveys Make Good Neighbors Compare & Contrast American Cities If you’re a single mom raising children under five years old in Miami, chances are you’re poor. According to the 2000 U.S. Census,…
Charts Miami Neighborhood Map Are You Poor? Do the Math Miami Portrait Top-Ten Poorest Cities Poverty Quiz Good Surveys Make Good Neighbors Compare & Contrast American Cities Many Miami neighborhoods more closely resemble the outskirts of a poverty-stricken Latin capital than a major American city. In Wynwood and Allapattah and…
Charts Miami Neighborhood Map Are You Poor? Do the Math Miami Portrait Top-Ten Poorest Cities Poverty Quiz Good Surveys Make Good Neighbors Compare & Contrast American Cities There have been many days over the past two years when nary a customer has shown up at Freddie Southall’s coin laundry in…
Charts Miami Neighborhood Map Are You Poor? Do the Math Miami Portrait Top-Ten Poorest Cities Poverty Quiz Good Surveys Make Good Neighbors Compare & Contrast American Cities Welcome to Miami. The Magic City. Gateway to the Americas. And most recently: The poorest large city in the United States. That’s right…
Two weeks ago, as Miami-Dade Inspector General Christopher Mazzella waved a 47-page affidavit at reporters in support of the arrest of former county commissioner Miriam Alonso, he declared: “The arrest warrant filed today could be a syllabus for a course titled Corruption 101.” Alonso, looking haggard, had turned herself in,…
They’re angry, tough, resentful, good Christians, flush with family values, and full of loathing for Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas. They are zealous and perhaps, according to detractors, a little paranoid. They also may soon be running this town. Their public presence is Take Back Miami-Dade, a political coalition dedicated to…
“Hi! This is Amtrak. I’m Julie! I invite you –” “Agent!” I yell into the phone. “–to visit our Website www.amtrak.com for –” “AGENT!!!” I strain a jaw muscle; she ignores me. “–online reservations and service information. Okay, to –” “AGENT!!!!” I see stars. It’s because of Julie, the perky…
On July 23, Sharon Franklin went to the Miami-Dade elections office in the Stephen P. Clark Center in downtown Miami to register as a candidate for the Country Club of Miami Community Council. One of fourteen local zoning boards that approve (or not) applications in unincorporated Miami-Dade, it had been…
It started with an anonymous letter sent last June to parents of students at Florida International Academy, an Opa-locka-born charter school with a troubled past. “The Verdict Is In!!!!” screamed the letter. “Ms. Mitchell Must Be Fired!!!!” The letter went on to allege that Ms. Mitchell, the executive director of…
