The 1958 scrapbook illustrates the current infrastructure gap. When the Greater Miami population flourished for decades, we were not short of developers building the places where we lived and worked. What we really lack is important public infrastructure that must be provided by the government.
Miami's personal pattern of progress with the government's vital contribution that lags far behind is not limited to any generation. It is not listed in history books, but is clear by reading between the lines.
I got a lesson during the holidays, from kliping kliping a friendly picture newspaper revealed in our office a few years ago. It was collected in the late 1950s by unknown Miamian who focused on development and the future. This person carefully attaches a time report that records any planned developments in the area.
The clippings as a group tell the story of the opportunity for the government to lead the growth of the region which is followed up very late - if there is one.
This book carefully shows every size hotel planned, including some that were never built. But quite a lot was built - such as the now missing Dupont Plaza Hotel, Diplomat and a number of others - to keep the tourism industry roaring.
The pages devoted to plans reveal shopping centers that are so far inland that they look crazy, but they built them and called them Dadeland. This seems to work.
The residential buildings - they were not condominiums at that time - were also displayed in abundance.
There is even an attraction for visitors, a new planetarium, which will be built next to a new science museum that is equally new. Both were opened successfully across Vizcaya south of the city center, this site was abandoned for our latest version of the science and planetarium museum.
The loss of all the glittering projects at that time is the same thing that is missing from our sparkling new project: supporting government infrastructure. Not a bit of new transportation, not water and sewerage work, no parking, even buildings to support the government itself.
Yes, indeed there are plans for Miami City Hall in the city center on Flagler Street. The land is there, the owners offer to build wide public space for the future of the growing city, but with the benefit of looking back we know that it never happened.
The Miami City Hall is currently a small building in Coconut Grove left by Pan American World Airways when it no longer needs it as an seaplane terminal. The city's main office is a few miles away on the Miami River in a structure built for Florida Power & Light which became a surplus when FPL moved north to Juno Beach. Now the city is exchanging riverbank sites with developers who will eventually build offices for the city in a place that has not yet been chosen - but it is not the right city hall for a big city, just an office building.
Miami had the opportunity 60 years ago to make a statement with the town hall, as the clipping showed, but after the scrapbook was finished, he chose not to.
What they found was what we also felt: when private-funded growth took place here, government infrastructure for that had just been planned and might never have appeared at all.
Looking in 1958 into the crystal ball, reporter Leo Adde speculated in the Herald that a future suburban 1965 Miami would "wake up early - he must. It took a long trip to the city center, to a new office building complex that grew on the edge of the bay Flagler Street Miami has developed as a state financial and banking center ...
"The family of two cars is unusual on the outskirts of the city again," he wrote. "Fast long-distance transit has not developed here as in other cities planning the start of modern wonders such as monorails ... The district allows housing development to the limits of highway rights. There is no room left for commuter parking.
"What is the use of the monorail line if there is no place to leave the car once you reach it?" "Experts say that in order to carry out adequate transportation planning in 1965, it would be too late if in 1958, a region realized the potential for growth in its territory.
"The driver put his little car into a whirling parade - 'a traffic disaster,' an expert called it. Twenty-five miles away, and he will work."
A pretty good guess for what will happen - the banking and financial center of the future - and what won't happen, namely transportation infrastructure to make life work. If you change "monorail" to "Metrorail," the paragraph might talk about the Miami dilemma today.
Not because the reporter is fine - he assumes that the richest executives will stay the farthest from the city center, that all workers who truly make community functions will live comfortably in affordable and abundant multi-storey apartment buildings. much closer to the city center, and that the richest Miamia will become retirees who will live in an area even closer to the city center. He did not see the arrival of condos or youth movements around the city center or the entry of residents from other countries - he wrote, do not forget, before the Cuban revolution and the consequences here.
But he knew very well about the failure to provide the transportation that the growing community needed. Fourteen years after he wrote, regional voters agreed to borrow bonds for Metrorail needed in 1958. Today, we are still trying to find enough money and willingness to build the remaining train transit we needed a few decades ago.
Looking beyond the clipping, an article by Jeanne Bellamy detailed gaps in other infrastructure needed by growing Miami, including a shortage of classrooms, hospital beds, water & sewers (we are around $13 billion behind today because we only doing a little for decades) and telephones (he can't predict that cellular will fill that gap many times in the next few decades).
When we question the need for a government vision for the future, we can look back on this scrapbook and note that the planning and implementation that the government did not do 60 years ago has been well described in this faded newspaper article.
Vision is there, but execution is not. We pay for it today, just as our grandchildren will pay if we let vital infrastructure wait for today. Have we learned lessons?
Miami's personal pattern of progress with the government's vital contribution that lags far behind is not limited to any generation. It is not listed in history books, but is clear by reading between the lines.
I got a lesson during the holidays, from kliping kliping a friendly picture newspaper revealed in our office a few years ago. It was collected in the late 1950s by unknown Miamian who focused on development and the future. This person carefully attaches a time report that records any planned developments in the area.
The clippings as a group tell the story of the opportunity for the government to lead the growth of the region which is followed up very late - if there is one.
This book carefully shows every size hotel planned, including some that were never built. But quite a lot was built - such as the now missing Dupont Plaza Hotel, Diplomat and a number of others - to keep the tourism industry roaring.
The 1958 Scrapbook Illustrates the Current Infrastructure Gap
There are also new office buildings, smaller than current standards but big for their time, including plans for Ferré buildings in the city center on 100 N Biscayne Blvd., all of the 30 stories that will be the highest in the state (yes, that it's there now, and it's just been updated).The pages devoted to plans reveal shopping centers that are so far inland that they look crazy, but they built them and called them Dadeland. This seems to work.
The residential buildings - they were not condominiums at that time - were also displayed in abundance.
There is even an attraction for visitors, a new planetarium, which will be built next to a new science museum that is equally new. Both were opened successfully across Vizcaya south of the city center, this site was abandoned for our latest version of the science and planetarium museum.
The loss of all the glittering projects at that time is the same thing that is missing from our sparkling new project: supporting government infrastructure. Not a bit of new transportation, not water and sewerage work, no parking, even buildings to support the government itself.
Yes, indeed there are plans for Miami City Hall in the city center on Flagler Street. The land is there, the owners offer to build wide public space for the future of the growing city, but with the benefit of looking back we know that it never happened.
The Miami City Hall is currently a small building in Coconut Grove left by Pan American World Airways when it no longer needs it as an seaplane terminal. The city's main office is a few miles away on the Miami River in a structure built for Florida Power & Light which became a surplus when FPL moved north to Juno Beach. Now the city is exchanging riverbank sites with developers who will eventually build offices for the city in a place that has not yet been chosen - but it is not the right city hall for a big city, just an office building.
Miami had the opportunity 60 years ago to make a statement with the town hall, as the clipping showed, but after the scrapbook was finished, he chose not to.
The clippings were collected when everyone realized that Dade Regency would soon accommodate 1 million people. In 1960 the official census was 935,047 - one third of the current population.
Looking at that time, reporters began to predict what the county would look like when the population reached a million, which was estimated in 1965.What they found was what we also felt: when private-funded growth took place here, government infrastructure for that had just been planned and might never have appeared at all.
Looking in 1958 into the crystal ball, reporter Leo Adde speculated in the Herald that a future suburban 1965 Miami would "wake up early - he must. It took a long trip to the city center, to a new office building complex that grew on the edge of the bay Flagler Street Miami has developed as a state financial and banking center ...
"The family of two cars is unusual on the outskirts of the city again," he wrote. "Fast long-distance transit has not developed here as in other cities planning the start of modern wonders such as monorails ... The district allows housing development to the limits of highway rights. There is no room left for commuter parking.
"What is the use of the monorail line if there is no place to leave the car once you reach it?" "Experts say that in order to carry out adequate transportation planning in 1965, it would be too late if in 1958, a region realized the potential for growth in its territory.
"The driver put his little car into a whirling parade - 'a traffic disaster,' an expert called it. Twenty-five miles away, and he will work."
A pretty good guess for what will happen - the banking and financial center of the future - and what won't happen, namely transportation infrastructure to make life work. If you change "monorail" to "Metrorail," the paragraph might talk about the Miami dilemma today.
Not because the reporter is fine - he assumes that the richest executives will stay the farthest from the city center, that all workers who truly make community functions will live comfortably in affordable and abundant multi-storey apartment buildings. much closer to the city center, and that the richest Miamia will become retirees who will live in an area even closer to the city center. He did not see the arrival of condos or youth movements around the city center or the entry of residents from other countries - he wrote, do not forget, before the Cuban revolution and the consequences here.
But he knew very well about the failure to provide the transportation that the growing community needed. Fourteen years after he wrote, regional voters agreed to borrow bonds for Metrorail needed in 1958. Today, we are still trying to find enough money and willingness to build the remaining train transit we needed a few decades ago.
Looking beyond the clipping, an article by Jeanne Bellamy detailed gaps in other infrastructure needed by growing Miami, including a shortage of classrooms, hospital beds, water & sewers (we are around $13 billion behind today because we only doing a little for decades) and telephones (he can't predict that cellular will fill that gap many times in the next few decades).
When we question the need for a government vision for the future, we can look back on this scrapbook and note that the planning and implementation that the government did not do 60 years ago has been well described in this faded newspaper article.
Vision is there, but execution is not. We pay for it today, just as our grandchildren will pay if we let vital infrastructure wait for today. Have we learned lessons?
The 1958 Scrapbook Illustrates the Current Infrastructure Gap.
For more reference about this post, find it on Google, Bing, Yahoo.
Share this post to your friends on social media at:
Miami Readers was built by Richard Reader, a blogger who now lives in Bali, but dedicates this website specifically to all readers and information seekers about the latest Miami, Florida.
0 Response to "The 1958 Scrapbook Illustrates the Current Infrastructure Gap"
Post a Comment