If not for Castro, would Miami be like Jacksonville? (Tampa: middle-class, transplants)

[jwolfer]

Originally Posted by Astral_Weeks

Jacksonville might as well be Iowa by the Sea. Kind of boring.

Jax metro has 1.5 million, Miami metro has over 6 million. Obviously there is more "to do" in Miami. And Miami was always a tourist city and now is an international city. So as others have said not exactly fair comparison. Jacksonville metro is about the same size as Oklahoma City or Indianapolis metro areas.

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Without Castro Miami would be still be more of a tourist destination than Jacksonville because of the Climate. Miami would not be the 'international city' it is now without all the Cuban refugees. Miami would be more of a "retirement city" than it is now. Miami would have developed much like Tampa, Orlando and to some extent Jacksonville. Jacksonville gets too cold ( in the Florida sense) for retirees. I think that Miami-Dade and Broward Counties would be closer in population, Ft Lauderdale, Miami and WPB would be like Triplet cities, closer in population and demographics

Miami development is physically constrained by the Ocean and Everglades, the other big 3 FL metros have much more available land for development. Without the large Spanish speaking community in Miami, Latin American immigration would have been more dispersed going to other Florida cities and places like Houston, Dallas, California and New York.

I think that the Jacksonville and Miami would be more similar today, like in 1950, but not exactly the same. Miami was much more "Southern" back then, large native Floridian population both black and white.

[karstic]

Originally Posted by ElGuito

Flushing Cuba's toilets onto Miami in the 1980s, Marielitos, per sé, didn't trash Miami; even in those days what used to be INS did a decent job in filtering out the criminals, criminal insane, etc. It was not exactly like Scarface.
The boom in crime was drug trafficking, mostly from Colombia.
Also, consider, if not for Castro, I bet most tourism would be in Cuba, Casinos, prostitution, affordable full service hotels, drugs, money laundering by way of impressive high rise condos, perhaps no extradition agreements, Panama or Ecuador like Banks...

I lived in Miami during Mariel and although it was tough, it did not lasted much. Criminals were jailed and the rest are now middle class. I also lived during the famous "drug cowboys" period and nothing changed, crimes were confined to dealers. The only change was the money earned by realtors, banks, etc.

Cuba would have retained the cream of the market, and Miami would have been more familiar and more middle class. Miami also had a lot of tourism from...Cuba, that went to shop at Burdines, Sears, Ten cent-Woolworth that were considerably cheaper than Cuba. I don't think that Jordan Marsh was around.

Cuba was a Tax Haven, that's why Frank Sinatra worked during his "low season" as a money courier for Meyer Lansky. As to extradition, the island was subject to American pressure, such as when Lucky Luciano was expelled to Sicily. Affordable...no, Cuba was more expensive, the only thing cheaper were French perfumes, Rum and cigars.

[karstic]

Miami did not have anything to do with Jacksonville and Tampa. New Yorkers and above all, Jews, were always a tremendous influence that shaped the city.

[karstic]

Originally Posted by Thundarr457

I remember visiting my aunt in Miami Beach in the 1960's and she was terrified of the crime in her neighborhood perpetrated on seniors by thugs from Miami. We stayed at hotels on Collins Ave, Deauville, Fontainebleau and Eden Roc. I remember Wolfies Deli. I also remember that the police used unmarked cars with out of state license plates and they dressed in T-shirts and jeans. I witnessed a carjacking where a couple was waiting at a light in their convertible and 2 thugs jumped in a threw the husband out on the road and drove off in his car. The art deco district was rundown in those days and not the "in" place it is now. Jacksonville is and never was anything like Miami because Miami has a different climate and was always a glamour spot. Jacksonville is more of a Navy town and more like the south than Miami. Most cities are ugly and boring compared to Miami its really not a fair comparison.

I stayed at the Lido during the 50's, I don't know if still around. As to crimes, no crime but MB was segregated. I remember Wolfies and Lums, the original, picking chicken and Ten Cent in the downtown.

I read somewhere that Jacksonville has the most dangerous hoods in the US, never been in that part of the countryside.

[jwolfer]

Originally Posted by karstic

I stayed at the Lido during the 50's, I don't know if still around. As to crimes, no crime but MB was segregated. I remember Wolfies and Lums, the original, picking chicken and Ten Cent in the downtown.

I read somewhere that Jacksonville has the most dangerous hoods in the US, never been in that part of the countryside.

I would venture to say the worst hoods in Miami and Jacksonville are similar. Both cities have a repuation for being unsafe

[jwolfer]

Originally Posted by karstic

Miami did not have anything to do with Jacksonville and Tampa. New Yorkers and above all, Jews, were always a tremendous influence that shaped the city.

Miami has many similarities to Tampa and Jacksonville. Not saying they are the same by any means but to say they have NOTHING in common is just not valid.

I would venture that you probably know very little about Jacksonville beyond driving through a short visit and the stereotypes ( stinky, redneck, South Georgia, crime ridden neighborhoods) Yes, like any city there are bad areas. And nowhere is perfect.

All of Florida was shaped very much by New Yorkers , and to a great extent Jews-- and not just New York Jews. The first synagogue in Florida was in Jacksonville in 1830s which like much of the South was founded by Sephardic Jews descended from settlers in colonial South Carolina, then NY Jews came later with the large European immigration (Bit of trivia the first Jewish senator was from Florida in the early days of statehood, David Levy Yulee). There are for sure larger numbers of Jews in South Florida today but to think Miami is the only city in Florida with significant Jewish contributions is a myopic.

Jacksonville was the gateway to Florida and until 1910 or 1920 Jacksonville was the states largest city, until Miami took over

[UrbanCrossroads]

Originally Posted by ElGuito

Flushing Cuba's toilets onto Miami in the 1980s, Marielitos, per sé, didn't trash Miami; even in those days what used to be INS did a decent job in filtering out the criminals, criminal insane, etc. It was not exactly like Scarface.
The boom in crime was drug trafficking, mostly from Colombia.

Well honestly ElGuito, you did not live in Miami during the mariel days, so it's not your place to say what did or didn't happen here. Drug-related crime affected the people involved in the drug trade, whereas some marielitos were a danger to the general public, for various reasons.
For years, the term "marielito" carried a negative connotation, even among kids. I remember in school, the marielito kids would deny being marielitos. They'd claim to have come to the US by plane(!) or that they were born in the US(!). But they never wanted to be associated with that term.

[Awsi Dooger]

Originally Posted by Loggerhead Shrike

I prefer the liberal elitists than the Deplorables that make any city disgusting. The government of Miami-Dade is not what I consider Liberal btw.

Agreed on all counts.

There was nothing wrong with that word -- deplorables -- even if it wasn't exactly great strategy, at least not compared to persistently telling 80% lies to a demographic not smart enough to recognize them as outright lies.

I don't mind Jacksonville. My father grew up there. I've spent plenty of time there. It never occurred to me to compare it to Miami, regardless of situational impact like anything Castro did. Jacksonville is part Florida and part southern Georgia. It's got a freeway bypass that is seldom necessary, unlike virtually any other big city. If we want to stick to political terms it's an oddball city because it's barely more Democratic than Republican in terms of registration. Compare that to Broward, which is more than 2/1 slant, while Dade and Palm Breach are roughly 5/3. Hillsborough (Tampa) is 4/3 while Orange (Orlando) is roughly 3/2.

Duval has always been considered a conservative county, one that Republicans could win by 10-15% to partially offset the southern part of the state. This year Trump's margin in Duval was only 1.5%, or virtually identical to his statewide margin.

The fact that those three counties in central and northern Florida that include major cities but have been slower than the norm to shift left in political terms is one of the reasons the state as a whole remains slightly red compared to the nation. The national exit poll was 26% self-identified liberals and 35% self-identified conservatives. That's the first time in my lifetime the gap has been lower than 10%. It held steady at 12% gap for a long time before dropping to 11, then 10, and now 9. I was shocked at 9. Naturally the media completely ignored that, compared to the presidential outcome. There was hardly an ideological shift, at least not in the direction that current conventional wisdom prefers. It was mostly an unforced error, prioritizing the wrong states while taking others for granted. Rather costly.

Florida was 25% liberals and 36% conservatives. So that's a classic swing state but slightly red. It's not exactly complicated toward how to determine a swing state: The liberal and conservative percentages closely mirror that national relationship of 26-35. The mistake is when you try to pretend North Carolina at 23-43 is a swing state, or Ohio at 21-38.

In time Duval, Hillsborough and Orange will drift more to the left. They've already been heading in that direction. One side of the aisle has to desperately root against more big cities forming, and voting like big cities do. Tough ask. Hard to stretch out those states and insert more farms.

[karstic]

Originally Posted by jwolfer

Miami has many similarities to Tampa and Jacksonville. Not saying they are the same by any means but to say they have NOTHING in common is just not valid.

I would venture that you probably know very little about Jacksonville beyond driving through a short visit and the stereotypes ( stinky, redneck, South Georgia, crime ridden neighborhoods) Yes, like any city there are bad areas. And nowhere is perfect.

All of Florida was shaped very much by New Yorkers , and to a great extent Jews-- and not just New York Jews. The first synagogue in Florida was in Jacksonville in 1830s which like much of the South was founded by Sephardic Jews descended from settlers in colonial South Carolina, then NY Jews came later with the large European immigration (Bit of trivia the first Jewish senator was from Florida in the early days of statehood, David Levy Yulee). There are for sure larger numbers of Jews in South Florida today but to think Miami is the only city in Florida with significant Jewish contributions is a myopic.

Jacksonville was the gateway to Florida and until 1910 or 1920 Jacksonville was the states largest city, until Miami took over

I never said that, I also lived in Boca and I know. I've heard about Southern Sephardics, but now are hard to find or they changed their names. There are many Sephardics from Latin America that originally came from Istambul almost a century ago.

[karstic]

Originally Posted by UrbanCrossroads

Well honestly ElGuito, you did not live in Miami during the mariel days, so it's not your place to say what did or didn't happen here. Drug-related crime affected the people involved in the drug trade, whereas some marielitos were a danger to the general public, for various reasons.
For years, the term "marielito" carried a negative connotation, even among kids. I remember in school, the marielito kids would deny being marielitos. They'd claim to have come to the US by plane(!) or that they were born in the US(!). But they never wanted to be associated with that term.

I lived during the period of Mariel and the Riots, all at the same time. 1980. But bad apples were packed away quite fast. Their crimes were idiotic, stealing beer from restaurants, stealing Sear's trucks. I don't think they were involved in drug trade as the idiotic movie implies except as couriers, they were not to trust. Marielitos had a bad name, but not anymore considering that now are almost "historical".