Miami's globalization is accompanied by a restructuring of the city's political economy and the emergence of a powerful growth machine. After the shock caused by massive Latino immigration wore off, the old business elite combined forces with the new Hispanic (Cuban) elite and capitalized on Miami's international economic opportunities. Miami's experience illustrates the materialist imperatives of globalization and its unplanned social consequences. The benefits of economic growth are not equally distributed, and there are notable discrepancies along ethnic lines. The growth machine generates local narratives that emphasize the values of multiculturalism, but Miami's civic society has become fragmented and fragile. As an extreme example of a globalized city, Miami offers a glimpse of the fate of urban civilization in the global era.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
1. “In Miami, Sacrifices Are Extralegal Help,”New York Times, 10 Apr. 1995.
2.
2. This article focuses on Miami's metropolitan area. The terms “city” and “metropolitan area” are used interchangeably.
3.
ibid., 2 June 1996.
4.
4. New York Times, advertising supp., 15 Dec. 1995, p. 43.
5.
5. Joel Garreau, The Nine Nations of America (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981), p. 174.
6.
6. For an elaborate argument about the command function of so-called world cities, see Saskia Sassen, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991).
7.
“Dade's Economy Eclipses Output of Some Nations,”Miami Herald, 16 June 1996.
8.
8. The words of one local observer in Alejandro Portes and Alex Stepick, City on the Edge: The Transformation of Miami (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), p. 144.
10. Beacon Council, Miami's Multinational Business Community (Miami: Beacon Council, 1994).
11.
11. Jan Nijman, “Breaking the Rules: Miami in the Urban Hierarchy,”Urban Geography, 17:5-22 (1996).
12.
12. Rosabeth Moss Kantor, World Class: Thriving Locally in the Global Economy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995).
13.
13. John R. Logan and Harvey L. Molotch, Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), p. 293.
14.
14. Ibid., p. 307.
15.
15. Portes and Stepick, City on the Edge, p. 174.
16.
16. Ibid., pp. 29-30.
17.
17. Elected offices include the mayor, vicemayor, commissioners or council members, clerk, manager, attorney, and chief of police. Metropolitan Miami shows a striking pattern of political segregation in the sense that few local governments are ethnically mixed (the overarching metro government and the municipalities of Miami and South Miami are the best examples of ethnically mixed governments). Most municipalities have very large majorities of non-Hispanic whites, Hispanics, or blacks, respectively. These findings are based on data provided by the Dade County Department of Elections, 18 Apr. 1996.
18.
18. “Who's Who: 100 People Who Make Things Happen in South Florida,”supp., South Florida Business Journal, 29 Apr. 1994.
19.
19. “The Book of Lists,”supp., South Florida Business Journal, 22 Dec. 1995.
20.
20. Over thirty years ago, Murray Edelman introduced the distinction between symbolic and real politics. The former is the politics that is played out on the front pages of the local newspapers. The latter is the kind that takes place in back rooms and on golf courses, less visible yet more important. See Murray Edelman, The Symbolic Uses of Politics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1964).
21.
21. The concept of non-decision-making reflects that the most important decisions are made outside of the formal political process. See Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz, “Two Faces of Power,”American Political Science Review, 56:947-952 (1962).
22.
22. Logan and Molotch, Urban Fortunes, p. 322.
23.
23. Jan Nijman, “Class, Ethnicity, and the Economic Internationalization of Miami,” in Social Polarization in Post-Industrial Metropolises, ed. J. O'Loughlin and J. Friedrichs (Chicago: Gruyter, 1996).
24.
reprinted in Readings in Urban Theory, ed. S. Fainstein and S. Campbell (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1996), pp. 216-245.
25.
25. Miami has had its share of ethnic conflict. In 1980, Miami witnessed the worst race riots in the history of the United States since the Civil War (in terms of death and material damage), to be superseded only by the Los Angeles riots of 1992.
26.
26. Logan and Molotch, Urban Fortunes, p. 299.
27.
27. Another example of this reductionist approach to social problems in cities is Neal R. Peirce, Citistates: How Urban America Can Prosper in a Competitive World (Washington, DC: Seven Locks Press, 1993).
28.
28. Alejandro Portes, “Global Villagers: The Rise of Transnational Communities,”American Prospect, pp. 74-77 (Mar.-Apr. 1996).
29.
29. Néstor P. Rodríguez, “The Real `New World Order': The Globalization of Racial and Ethnic Relations in the Late Twentieth Century,” in The Bubbling Cauldron: Race, Ethnicity, and the Urban Crisis, ed. M. P. Smith and J. R. Feagin (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), p. 215.
30.
30. Pamela Varley, Language and the Melting Pot: Florida's 1988 “Official English” Referendum, Case #C-16-90-990 (Cambridge: MA: Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, 1990), p. 9.
31.
31. Rodríguez, “The Real `New World Order,' ” p. 216.
32.
32. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Disuniting of America (New York: Norton, 1992).
33.
33. The contrasting cases of Miami and Tokyo suggest a relationship between cultural diversity, civic culture, and crime. See Jan Nijman, “Wereldsteden in het proces van mondialisering,”Amsterdams sociologisch tijdschrift, 22:206-224 (1995).
34.
34. “Crime Termed `Berserk' in Miami: Refugees and Drugs Blamed in Part,”New York Times, 23 Dec. 1980.
35.
35. “Trouble in Paradise: South Florida Is Hit by a Hurricane of Crime, Drugs and Refugees,”Time, 23 Nov. 1981, pp. 22-32. Besides rising crime rates, the article was inspired by the Mariel boatlift, the race riots, and the influx of Haitian refugees, all of which converged in 1980.
36.
36. Department of Justice, Crime in the United States, Uniform Crime Reports (Washington, DC: Department of Justice, 1994).
37.
37. “Tourist Is Killed in Florida Despite Taking Precautions,”New York Times, 9 Sept. 1993.
38.
38. See Zdravko Mlinar, ed., Globalization and Territorial Identities (Aldershot: Avebury, 1992).
39.
39. Multiculturalism is a typical product of white Western culture, which reduces its viability in a setting where Western whites are a minority. In Miami, blacks and Hispanics rarely use the word.
40.
40. Yi-Fu Tuan, Cosmos and Hearth: A Cosmopolite's Viewpoint (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996).
