Miami is in the middle of a renaissance.
The city has been dubbed the Wall Street of South as financial firms relocate en masse to Florida.
They've been drawn in by the laxed COVID restrictions amid the pandemic, warmer weather and lower taxes.
The massive influx of people is having real world effects.
There are now nine supertall skyscrapers
in the works and the first has already broken ground.
These buildings will be the tallest on the US East Coast outside of New York.
At the same time, rents are surging and some residents
are being pushed further into the outer suburbs.
All of this is taking place against the backdrop of climate change.
The impacts of climate change are already being felt.
It's not theoretical for us in the city of Miami. It’s real.
Miami sits right along the ocean. It’s in the middle of a skyscraper building
boom. And some have questioned if the city will even be around in a matter of decades.
So how is Miami trying to construct America’s next megacity, when its entire future may be at risk?
Miami has always been an attractive city. Its warmer weather, outdoor lifestyle and lower
taxes have steadily been drawing people in for a long time. But the pandemic accelerated this.
In the last two and a half years, basically since the pandemic, Miami has become this
magnet for the well-heeled in tech, in finance, in many other industries and startup land. And
it's really a dramatic change in the quality of tenants and the type of people that are going.
2020 saw a surge in people from other states
buying “lockdown retreats” to escape the restrictions enforced at home.
There’s also been a wave of office leasing from major companies like Microsoft and Amazon.
And in 2021, Florida saw the second biggest population increase in the entire country.
This in turn creates more business opportunities.
Once the big firms have established themselves, smaller firms that would never have considered
Miami before have flocked to the city to work with these larger companies.
The reason Miami now has this moniker, Wall Street South is because the kind of
firms that are moving and moving in droves, not it's no longer a little office here and
there. It is actually signifying intent to make that the major base, if not the headquarters.
Experts are now saying Miami could become a major player in the tech and finance worlds,
putting it on par with Silicon Valley and London within a decade.
Regardless of rising sea levels, right now Miami is reaping the benefits of becoming
the Wall Street of the South and the construction industry is at the forefront of its new identity.
Due to break ground in 2023 this 317-metre supertall skyscraper will
become the tallest office building in the state.
One Brickell City Centre will feature 148,000 square metres of office space
as well as the largest floor plates for a Class A office tower in Miami.
But its reign as the state’s tallest office building might
not last long, the proposed One Bayfront Plaza is coming in at 320-metres.
To match this slate of commercial buildings,
large scale luxury residential developments are popping up all over the skyline too.
There’s the 319-metre skyscraper proposed for 888
Brickell Avenue that will include 259 condos spread over 82-storeys.
Then there’s the crown jewel of the city’s newly minted
supertall skyscrapers. The Waldorf Astoria Hotel & Residences.
Designed as a stack of gigantic glass boxes rising 100 storeys high – the Waldorf will include 360
private residential condo units, as well as 205 hotel rooms and suites.
There will also be a restaurant and ballrooms. Construction has already begun.
Before we get too far into this shiny new Miami-in-the-making – let’s take a minute
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Now let’s get back to the video.
Everywhere you look there is construction on a scale the city has never seen before.
There’s investment in new businesses which should help boost the local economy.
But it’s a bit of a double-edged sword for locals.
There are now record rent hikes in the city,
they've gone up 45.8 percent over the last year.
That makes it the highest increase in rent in the entire country and has earned Miami the
title of the most rent-burdened city in America. Renters here devote nearly
60 percent of their income to paying for housing.
That's pushing locals further and further out,
congesting roads and swelling up the outer suburbs.
It’s a phenomenon seen in major cities all over
the world. Growing pains on Miami’s way to becoming a major international metropolis.
Where it might become unsustainable is when your development and your
excitement and your capital meets your infrastructure realities.
Miami is not a real city in that sense, right? The roads, the public transit, all of those other things that fall in.
I mean, it's essentially designed as a quaint little town and now is trying to be a city.
So, is all of this growth and construction ultimately short-sighted? What will the city
look like at the end of the century, or even in just a few decades?
Well, Miami could be wiped off the map by 2100 and may be unliveable even sooner that.
At least according to a report called the Florida Climate Outlook,
put together by an independent research group.
Sea levels are expected to rise by up to 79 centimetres by 2060.
And the pace of this rising is getting quicker.
A new study claims that Miami Beach Key West in the upper and lower keys could soon be underwater.
In an effort to make sure Miami is still around in 50 years,
it’s spending $4BN over the next 40 years to build new sea walls,
elevated roads and higher capacity pumps and drainage systems to alleviate flooding.
But even that might not be enough. Some areas will have to adopt a strategy of managed retreat.
Within two decades these areas will be too
expensive to maintain and will have to be abandoned.
Florida’s position at the end of the Atlantic Ocean’s “Hurricane Alley”
makes the state twice as vulnerable to these devastating super storms than any other.
In 2017 alone cyclones contributed to an estimated $265BN worth of damage in the state.
As storms become more frequent and more deadly it will only become a more expensive place to stay.
These factors have led to the coining of a new term in Florida real estate:
“climate gentrification”
First popularised by a Harvard study of Miami house prices in 2018,
the phrase refers to a sudden increase in value in elevated land across the city.
In 2012, the average home in Little Haiti cost $99,600, just 38 per cent of Miami Beach.
Today the price is $414,000, just over what you’d find in Miami Beach.
The reason for this: Little Haiti is 2.1 metres above sea level compared to Miami Beach’s 1.2
metres. Those extra 90 centimetres are converting to dollars, and quickly.
These higher elevated areas are also historically Black, working-class and poorer.
The people living here are now finding themselves pushed out for mega luxury developments,
like that of Magic City Innovation District in Little Haiti. A billion dollar 6 hectare
site that would have been unheard of in the area just a few years ago. Now it’s the norm.
There’s no question Miami is a city on the rise.
An explosion in growth has led to record construction and towering
super skyscrapers unseen on the east coast outside of New York.
At the same time, it's been declared as the frontline of America's climate crisis.
It will be one of the cities worst affected by the rising seas and increasing hurricanes.
It remains to be seen how the city will fight its looming future. But right now,
it needs to build in a way to weather the oncoming storm.
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