Miami 2012

We used to say that "the best thing about Miami was its proximity to the United States." Having recently returned for our first guerrilla-type house-hunting trip, I can say that things haven't changed so much since we left that contiguous land nearly nine years ago. Foreign territory it remains.


Spanish is still the first language that greets you. But our favorite Cuban "cafeteria" in Miami Beach is now serving schnitzel and beer. It is called the "Hofbrau Miami"and claims to be the best German Bavarian Restaurant and Beerhall in the county. Our favorite fish market underneath the Julia Tuttle Bridge, gone. Alrighty then!


Miami architecture used to be known for either its Deco pastels or its "too much is never enough" style of Morris Lapidus and his peers who built the iconic behemoths of the 1950s and 60s like the Fountainbleu and Eden Roc hotels. The blues and greens of the 1980s defined by Michael Mann's Miami Vice brought in a whole other design that propelled the city for the next two decades. Well, times have changed and a new trend has risen. I'll simply call it Steroidal Construction. Buildings on steroids. The  downtown area, which used to be a charming (and yes, seedy, in certain areas) series of blocks running down the Biscayne corridor to Brickell,  is now a canyon of architecturally rockstar buildings, all nestled next to each other in disharmonious clutter. RitzCarlton, W, JWMarriott, Viceroy, Setai, Mandarin Oriental, even Canyon Ranch have set up shop in Miami or Miami Beach.  Frank Gehry built a concert hall. Adrienne Arsht who used to own TotalBank is now the name of the Opera House and Center for the Arts straddling downtown's main thoroughfare. It's hard to see all of the new landmarks, squashed as they are,   competing for your attention in the glistening sun and steel. A decade ago there weren't enough rooms; today, the competition is fierce, although the service still remains "foreign." 


There seem to be more Haitians, Brazilians, Argentines visiting and young Northerners looking to party.


But we had a mission on this last trip: see the changes and gauge how we felt in anticipation of a possible next move.  So after viewing dozens of open houses, dilapidated condos, school interviews, foreclosure lists, our guerrilla search made us realize something very important: to a couple of middle-aging Urban Nomads, Miami is still...home.