Not what I had in mind when I signed up for this diary, but, fancying myself a serious journalist, I decide to join. I board the bus at 10:00 a.m. this morning and meet a handful of other serious journalists, including a reporter from the Florida Jewish News and a Goth-looking French TV reporter who doesn’t smile much.
Our first stop is Overtown, a poor, mostly black area abutting downtown. There we meet Reginald Munnings, a powerful orator who’s mighty mad at the changes in Overtown, where he’s lived all his life. Luxury condos are rising up all around him, gentrification is forcing residents out and no one’s building any truly affordable housing. “What angers me is that my neighborhood may be disappearing from under my nose,” he says. “I’m not against beautification in this neighborhood. I just want to be part of it.”
Munnings was around for the 1989 Super Bowl, which was also held in Miami. The week before the game, riots broke out in Overtown and hordes of media beamed out images of a city in flames. In the Super Bowls held here since, says Munnings, the cops have been careful not to allow a repeat of that PR disaster. Just last week, for instance, police arrested 127 people in Overtown and surrounding areas in just one night (authorities say this wasn’t related to the big game). City leaders “want to romance the people here for the Super Bowl that all is rosy in Miami,” says Munnings. But “that’s not the real Miami.”
Our relentless tour guides have yet more reality in store for us. We head north to the Umoja Village shantytown, a 45-person squatter settlement on a barren city-owned lot that looks like the sort of thing you might find in Bangladesh. A couple of residents show us around—the “kitchen” area buzzing with flies, the “living room” crammed with tattered old furniture and the dwellings made of plywood, cardboard and tarp. “I’m going to stay here until I get affordable housing,” says resident Jonathan Baker.
Well, as it happens, at that very moment, Miami Mayor Manny Diaz is holding an event at Pinnacle Park, a new affordable-housing development nearby. Our guides, clearly itching to cap off this inspiring day with a little friendly ruckus, decide to head over. We arrive at the tail end of the ceremony, held amid slabs of concrete on a construction site. A sign outside reads: WE ARE PART OF DADE COUNTY’S AFFORDABLE-HOUSING SOLUTION. Only problem is, according to our tour organizers, neighborhood residents can’t actually afford to live there. Protesters interrupt Diaz’s comments with chants of “Housing now! Housing now!” Soon, the cops arrive, and before long, Diaz hightails it with his entourage. So much for that celebration.
That’s about as much reality as I can take today. I board the bus back to South Beach. I need a drink.
