Miami is on the front lines of climate change.
My taxi driver was from Hiati. My sushi maker was from Honduras.
I hear almost as much Spanish as English and other languages.
It’s wealthy. It has an unofficial segregation in that neighbouring municipalities might be very rich / high life expectancy next to places that are poor.
Colours are mixed as the immigrant population is high and yet at surface glance the wealth still seems mostly white. I’m guessing it might seem more mixed than it might seem but the trend of inequality is apparent at a surface glance.
The car still seems king. I’m in the financial district part and I walk out but it’s hard to get far. There are a smattering of e-scooters but it seems dangerous from where I am.
That said Uber is cheap (the hotel concierge recommends it over taxis) and it seems OK to get around. Unsure about commuting from the suburbs. My google maps suggests using public transport would take 2x to 3x to get anywhere I was thinking of going. That doesn’t seem great to me.
The heat is humid and fierce. It reminds me of tropical SE Asia more than Boston or San Francisco.
The four seasons hotel has a particular clientele. I see chi-chi dogs. Very manicured people. Few non-white who aren’t staff.
I see hardly anything else. My Uber driver wasn’t convinced about climate change. “What about the rivers…?” I end up talking about the water cycle but am interested in what he thinks.
I think some of what I see from the plane will be underwater in the coming decades but with all the upfront challenges I could glimpse from some of the poor, I can see why it’s not high on their priority lists.