David, you've amassed a few hundred million through a soccer career that proved the value of global branding, played a bit longer than you should have, and now are scouting for a future investment in a professional soccer team.While you were accumulating caps for England, I was gaining invaluable experience in South Florida sprawl.
For years I ferried children from Coral Gables to West Dade soccer games and all over the western reaches of the tri-county area, where local government located parks after they had used up every acre closer to coasts, in suburban sprawl.
So what I can tell you, David Beckham, is this: when it comes to professional sports in Miami, it is all about the traffic.
The FIU people, including the sprawl boosters Mayor Carlos Gimenez and unreformable county commissioner Jose "Pepe" Diaz, are trying to persuade you that the soccer-crazy populations living in West Dade could make up the entire consumer base for a new professional soccer team. Interesting, that people living out in US Century Bank sprawl-land would support a pro soccer team. I wonder how that squares with demographics, disposable incomes and realities of families struggling with underwater mortgages in the subdivisions housing so many soccer crazy kids. Your advisors will find out.
As far as counting on consumers braving the dismal traffic west-bound at game time, from population centers in Miami to FIU, I can already imagine the sideline officials waving their flags. The land-use pattern that dominates South Florida is what stops many businesses from investing here. We don't issue penalties to protect our assets in Miami, we give the violators medals.
The rules were bent by a powerful development lobby and lobbyists who found no reason to limit growth. Taxpayers are choking on the results. We tried our best to stop the fouling of South Florida, Mr. Beckham, but the referees all said, "Play on."
10 comments:
Beckham is so HOT!!!!! Sorry, I can't get past that to read what you wrote!!!!!!
What about Mayor Gimenez and that teddy bear paunch? Now THAT's hot!
I haven't watched the Heat all season. Turned on the TV at the beginning of the third quarter. Boy did they stink or what? Miami Wade County?
It's the same insane approach as before: Build it and they will come! Fact is we know they're not coming to watch let alone pay to watch. From Homestead to North Dade. All Stadium facilities don't pay for themselves. It's a big sham to distract the citizens into thinking we're a "World Class" city, in indebtedness category, YES!
Add soccer hooliganism, Miami style, to the traffic, that is a recipe for disaster. We can only handle this addition with an expanded and efficient and affordable public transportation system, without the sticky fingers of elected/appointed hooligans.
David Beckham is worth $275 Mil per the Herald. No more bailouts for sports centimillionaires. Use what we have.
I know plenty of people and friends who packed up and left. Some of them were the best fighters we had. Some of them grew old. Some of them too disgusted or tired of the fight, to stay. In a sense I've already "hauled ass". I'm traveling frequently and guess the day will come when I leave Miami. But with all due respect, there are lots of other places that are fucked up. Miami has its own special quality, though, as the most populous county in one of the nation's bellweather political states. The civic journalism we practice at Eye On Miami does serve a useful purpose, especially in the absence of any in-depth coverage of the bedrock issues that track how Miami got fucked up in the first place.
Basically the stories we tell are about the deliberate mis-allocation of risk and the shifting of costs to taxpayers who, when they vote, often vote against their own interests. We also detail the role of money in local and state politics, in ways that the mainstream press often do not probe because of the tight relationship with corporate advertisers.
Listen to the Tim DeChristopher interview with Bill Moyers, posted above, for more ...
The criminals and the corrupt lobbyists work full time to discourage the media and citizens from exposing their crimes.
oh please, that sorry ass comment "if you don't like it, leave" ...that IS the problem with Miami - too many people did leave instead of staying and fighting to ensure a good quality of life for all and that quality of life doesn't include hours of life wasted in snarled traffic so developers can enrich themselves.
Anyone who says "leave" when they get frustrated about our city are half the problem. We have to stay and fight for our city, otherwise no one will. We deserve, our city deserves it, our future deserves it.
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