Miami neighborhoods - Travel Miami Beach - Miami Beach vacation rentals
Sizzling, sun-drenched Miami is hot again -- the place to be seen and to make a scene. Its heavy Latin American influence, glitterati-infused party scene, delightful art deco architecture, contemporary art boom, and beaches of white-as-bleached-teeth sand make this a city like no other.
The hub of Miami Beach is South Beach (SoBe, to anyone but locals), and the hub of South Beach is the Art Deco District. New high-rises and hotels spring up, areas like SoFi ("south of fifth" street) blossom, and clubs open (and close) with dizzying speed. Yet Miami Beach is more than just SoBe. Many people fail to realize that there's more to Miami Beach than the bustle of South Beach and its Deco District. Indeed, there are quieter areas to the north like Sunny Isles Beach, Surfside, and Bal Harbour.South Florida's oldest settlement, "The Grove" was established by 1873, two decades before Miami. Its early settlers built a community that attracted artists, writers, and scientists to establish winter homes. To this day Coconut Grove reflects its pioneers' eclectic origins. Posh estates mingle with rustic cottages, modest frame homes, and stark modern dwellings, often on the same block. The historic center of the village of Coconut Grove went through a hippie period in the 1960s, a laid-back funkiness in the 1970s, and a teenybopper invasion in the early 1980s. Today the tone is upscale and urban.An arch of banyan trees prepares you for the grand entrance onto Miracle Mile, the heart of downtown Coral Gables. Coral Gables was envisioned an American Venice, with canals and gracious homes spreading across the community. The planned community with eye-popping Spanish Mediterranean architecture that justifiably calls itself the City Beautiful.Steel-and-glass buildings have sprung up around downtown, the heart of the city. By day there's plenty of activity downtown, as suited lawyers and bankers share the sidewalks with Latino merchants wearing open-neck, intricately embroidered shirts called guayaberas. But it's still pretty quiet when all the merchants close up shop for the night.
More than 40 years ago, Cubans fleeing the Castro regime flooded into an older neighborhood west of downtown Miami. Don't expect a sparkling and lively reflection of 1950s Havana, however. What you will find are ramshackle motels and cluttered storefronts. With a million Cubans and other Latinos -- who make up more than half the metropolitan population -- dispersed throughout Greater Miami, Little Havana and neighboring East Little Havana remain magnets. That culture, of course, functions in Spanish.South Miami retains its small-town charm. Fine old homes and stately trees line Sunset Drive, a city-designated Historic and Scenic Road to and through the town. The pace in this friendly community has picked up over the past several years, since the arrival of the Shops at Sunset Place, a retail complex larger than Coconut Grove's CocoWalk.Government Cut and the Port of Miami separate the city's dense urban fabric from two of its playground islands, Virginia Key and Key Biscayne. Parks occupy much of both keys, providing facilities for golf, tennis, softball, picnicking, and sunbathing, plus uninviting but ecologically valuable stretches of dense mangrove swamp. Key Biscayne's long and winding roads are great for rollerblading and bicycling, and its lush laziness provides a respite from the buzz-saw tempo of SoBe.
Miami Cities
1700 Convention Center Drive
Miami Beach, FL 33139
305.604.CITY
Here a list of the most popular cities:
Bal Harbour
Brickell
Coconut Grove
Coral Gables
Downtown Miami
Eastern Shores
Hallandale
Key Biscayne
Little Havana
Miami Beach
North Miami
South Beach, the Art deco District
Sunny Isles
Surfside
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