The year 2100 will probably catch the fourth South Beach renaissance (the first being Art Deco, the second now, the third and fourth still to come). Maybe on the fourth try club owners will get it right. There will be live music, live music, live, live music. Music from the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, East Asia, the Pacific, and alas, the local flavor. Since Miami is and will continue to be a crossroads, everyone will dance funny, each limb going in different directions as sweat streams down our faces.
What will be the hippest
Miami-Dade neighborhood, what will it look like, and how much will it cost to
live there?
It will be wherever you live. Esa es la clave to
make your home and your neighborhood your kingdom. I live in Shenandoah and
hopefully there will be enough continuity in my life so my great-grandchildren
will claim this as their ancestral home.
Will your favorite
South Florida restaurant of today still exist? And will the clientele
change?
I like the idea that my favorite restaurant hasn't
been invented. But I hope the mom-and-pop holes-in-the-walls still exist. I hope
restaurant chains do not overwhelm us.
Imagine yourself sitting
in a canoe on Shark River slough. What do you see?
I see
exactly what people saw at the turn of the Twentieth Century: a virtually virgin
landscape with the flora and fauna battling it out for themselves. The occasional
alligator checks out the scene and then sinks with powerful
grace.
When the urban Miami dweller of 2100 wants to take a walk
in a park, where will he or she go?
It's hard to imagine
Miami growing and the number or size of parks increasing. There have to be parks
by the water, by Biscayne Bay, by a cleaned-up Miami River. In every
neighborhood, within walking distance, there has to be a park with sand and
swinging vines from ficus and slopes to give the illusion that Miami isn't flat.
I really hope the parks along the Miami River are preserved and developed into
attractions complete with smooth, colorful stones lining the
river.
How long will it take to travel from Miami to Havana, and
how will folks make the trip? Ditto from Kendall to downtown.
By car from Little Havana, five and a half hours. Ferry from
Key West, one and a half hours. Airplane from MIA, still forty minutes. Bicycle
from Kendall, one full day; to El Vedado add one hour; to Regla add two
hours.
How will you spend the day on January 1, 2100?
To paraphrase Gregory Corso, a favorite poet of mine, I will never know
my death. People say I'm going to die, but on January 1, 2100, being 132 years
old, I will still be up from the night before, listening to a jam session at my
home with my friends, almost all younger; there will be some contemporaries to
remind me of who I am and where I come from. I will be laughing and remembering
when a local newspaper asked me what was I going to be doing on January 1,
2100.
