Remember, there are no "small towns" near Miami! (Hialeah: homes, living)

[tallrick]

Maps and census can be misleading. Every so often I meet someone through a contact asking for south Florida advice. They look at amap and see little dots like "kendall" "Hialeah" and "medley" and so forth and imagine some little town with open space in between. While that was the case 50 years ago, they cannot seem to comprehend that all of southeast Florida is one developed strip, from Homestead to martin county. While there are municipalities there are no small towns.

[NJ2MIA]

Hi,
That's informative!! I'm moving from north Jersey, where everything is a little, tiny town. So I thought Kendall was a town. You're saying it's part of Miami? How does the police & emergency response work there?

[Ben Around]

Originally Posted by NJ2MIA

Hi,
That's informative!! I'm moving from north Jersey, where everything is a little, tiny town. So I thought Kendall was a town. You're saying it's part of Miami? How does the police & emergency response work there?

Tallrick is talking about sprawl. As he points out, there are lots of little municpalities in South FL that have small land areas and small populations, like Sweetwater, West Miami and Virginia Gardens. But these municipalities are completely surrounded by larger neighboring municipalities, or by something called "Unincorporated Dade", which just means those parts of the county that no one ever bothered to annex or incorporate, but nevertheless have large populations. Not sure if it is still there, but there used to be a little chunk (less than 1 square mile) of Unincorporated Dade that was surrounded on 3 sides by Coral Gables, and one side by the city of Miami. It was completely developed with single family homes. The only way you'd know you weren't in Coral Gables any more was becuase the street names changed from Spanish to numerical at the border. The only way you knew you weren't in Miami was if you had a map and noticed a different shade of color!

[doggiebus]

Originally Posted by NJ2MIA

Hi,
That's informative!! I'm moving from north Jersey, where everything is a little, tiny town. So I thought Kendall was a town. You're saying it's part of Miami? How does the police & emergency response work there?

Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach County are one giant metropolis all connected to one another. No farm land in between each city. Each city butts up to the next city or area.

Kendall isn't a city or town, its an area, part of unincorporated Miami-Dade County. Since its not a city and its in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, the Miami-Dade County Police patrol the area. The fire department is run through Miami-Dade County too. I hope I explained it so you can understand.

[Chelito23]

I thought you were going to mention those places on the maps like Cooperstowne, Ochopee, Devil's Garden, Sunniland...all little dots on the map, but if you drive through them, it is literally maybe ONE gas station or business and two or three hosues. Just blips on the roadway, no land to be developed at all even. We do seem to have our fair share or these technical towns that are truely only on the map for filling up space! Can be misleading to non locals I would imagine.

[heydade]

Originally Posted by NJ2MIA

Hi,
That's informative!! I'm moving from north Jersey, where everything is a little, tiny town. So I thought Kendall was a town. You're saying it's part of Miami? How does the police & emergency response work there?

Miami-Dade Fire-Rescue, since it's so freaking big, usually provides services to smaller incorporated towns, cities, villages that decided to incorporate to be more independent. This rule applies to most municipalities, but not all. Coral Gables has it's own Fire Dept, as does Key Biscayne. City of Miami, which is in Miami-Dade county, has it's own Fire Dept and police department since they cover a very large area. I know...City of Miami, Miami-Dade county...it can all get very very confusing. My fiancee is still confused to this day even though she has been living her for 11 years.

The reason Miami-Dade Fire provides these services to all the smaller towns, villages and cities is because running a fire department is VERY expensive. Most of these smaller towns, villages and cities have their own police departments though, since it's more cost effective to have your own police department. Pinecrest, South Miami, Homestead, Surfside, North Bay Village, Sunny Isles, Sweetwater, Miami Gardens, North Miami, North Miami Beach, Aventura, Bal Harbour, Opa-Locka, Florida City all have their own seperate police department, but all use Miami-Dade Fire-Rescue to protect their areas.

The cities within Miami-Dade that have both their own Fire AND police departments are Hialeah, Coral Gables, Miami-Beach and Key Biscayne.

Now when you move up to Broward County, there is much more fragmentation with many small cities having their own police AND fire departments. BSO is trying to change that though and it seems every year they are snagging up another city and providing fire service to that city. Cooper City is one of recent memory. BSO by the way (Broward Sheriff's office) is an all-in-one public safety service company with both Fire-Rescue and police all wrapped up into one.

[kevinkagy]

Here's an easy way to think of it. Miami is everything in Miami-Dade County. Anything you consider as Miami or Southeast Florida, is Miami-Dade County.

[blackklight]

the only time i ever say i live in miami is when it's someone who doesn't live here and otherwise would have no idea where i live. miami itself is but a fraction of miami-dade county.

[tallrick]

Originally Posted by Chelito23

I thought you were going to mention those places on the maps like Cooperstowne, Ochopee, Devil's Garden, Sunniland...all little dots on the map, but if you drive through them, it is literally maybe ONE gas station or business and two or three hosues. Just blips on the roadway, no land to be developed at all even. We do seem to have our fair share or these technical towns that are truely only on the map for filling up space! Can be misleading to non locals I would imagine.

It's like people looking for Andytown. That was destroyed when us-27 and I-75 was built. Most lost towns have either been swallowed by sprawl or eliminated when the Government set land off-limits. Remember the world's smallest post office in ochopee? It sits in the middle of Seminole land. many dots on the map were also named for railroad stations.

[Ben Around]

Originally Posted by tallrick

many dots on the map were also named for railroad stations.

Yes, like Goulds and Naranja. There's really no towns there, they are part of unincorporated Dade's sprawl along US 1, but they were stations on the old FEC railway and still show up on state and local maps.