Miami Transformed. Manny Diaz

bite opinions on this, but no one asks: Why do corporations and investors choose one place over another? When we see corporations shipping jobs and investments overseas, we have a right to be angry. But instead of stoking this anger for political gain, we must also ask why these decisions were made. What prompted them to do this in the first place? What has made investment in the U.S. so unattractive that this company went elsewhere? And how can we make it stop—how do we become competitive again?

      There are some who will always believe the United States will be number one no matter what. Our future is not guaranteed. Many other nations are pushing the frontiers of progress; they are looking inward and not afraid to invest in themselves and their people. The twentieth century saw the end of European dominance; this could be the century where America loses its dominance.

      World powers today compete for economic strength and the weapons are not nuclear or missiles: the weapons are information and currency. Indeed, there is a trend for younger, well-educated workers to leave the United States in search of opportunities in other countries. Our immigration policies are such that while many of the world’s best brains study in our colleges and universities, we are unable to retain them. Every dollar we don’t spend, or worse yet misspend, every failure to invest, leads to more confidence lost, putting others around the world one step closer to catching and beating us. Countries like China, Russia, India, and Brazil are gaining on us by investing in their cities and people. They are also buying us out. In the past decade, our foreign debt has skyrocketed, with China holding the greatest portion of our debt. Other countries have figured out that it is easier to buy us than to bomb us.

      We have a multi-trillion-dollar deficit without a foundation that can sustain our continued appetite for spending, placing us on the road from being the world’s greatest power to becoming the world’s greatest borrower. At the same time, our continued crumbling infrastructure places us at a competitive disadvantage.

      While much of the attention of our politics remains focused on the national level and inside the Beltway, ideas and solutions are not coming from Washington, D.C. The economic policies of past administrations have eroded the middle class. The competing theories of “trickle down” and spending that perpetuate dependency have not worked. Much in the same way that when business stops spending, the economy stops growing and jobs are lost, government cannot cut its way back to prosperity. On the other hand, an absolute safety net of dependency is simply not sustainable.

      Government is not the end all and be all, nor is it altogether unnecessary. Government has a role—to create, through investment, the climate of opportunity and attraction, where people and business will then invest, either through capital or by choosing to live in one place over another. Let me make something very clear: there is a great difference between investing and spending. Investments have a clear aim and an expected return, mere spending does not. Government investments, therefore, must be targeted and strategic, leading to greater returns.

      Much in the same way, business always needs to innovate to maintain a competitive edge and survive, so must government—and it must begin in the place where it has the most impact, in our cities. To survive as a nation, we must ensure that our cities remain competitive. It is time we end the focus on D.C. and Beltway based solutions, and return to a focus on our cities.

      Currently, the world is experiencing a renewed urbanization. Over 50 percent of the world’s population now live in cities, with the number being over 80 percent for the United States. Metro areas drive our national economy, accounting for 92 percent of the nation’s economic growth, almost 90 percent of all jobs, income, and Gross Domestic Product. Cities, therefore, have the most impact on our people. They are where we as a nation can realize the greatest return on our investment. In the chapters that follow, you will see examples of how focused investments in five key areas—(expansion of economic opportunity/public safety/infrastructure/sustainability/arts/culture) took Miami from a city that was once known as a laughingstock and transformed it into the face of the new American city.

      I STILL REMEMBER a 1981 cover from Time Magazine declaring that Miami was “Paradise Lost.” The article cited how Miami ranked number one on the FBI list of most crime ridden cities in America and that an “estimated 70 percent of all marijuana and cocaine imported into the U.S.” came in through South Florida. Scarface and Miami Vice are what people saw in movies and on television. The prevalence of “Cocaine Cowboys,” race riots, and other negative factors added to the reputation of Miami: that it was a nice place to visit, briefly, but not a place to raise your children, start a business, or call home.

      Our politics were also chaotic, with a mayoral election nullified due to fraud and a judge choosing the mayor. The city had highest tax rate possible, with little to show in return for the money it collected from its residents. In fact, the city was in so much debt that when I took office it had been bankrupt and placed under state supervision and control. There was even a referendum calling for the dissolution of the city; people had literally given up.

      Any growth in the city happened in spite of itself, an accident of weather and geography rather than any concerted planning or leadership. The excuse from city leaders was that “Miami has weather and water, investors will come.” But the money was going elsewhere. People, investors, and businesses were not moving into the city, but moving out, leaving in droves. If, as the old saying goes, “people vote with their feet,” the only footsteps heard in Miami were those of people too poor to leave for the suburbs.

      This hurt me personally. Miami is the city I grew up in, where my parents and so many others like them found refuge. It is where I went to school and worked as a professional, and it was and still is my home. I knew that Miami had great potential, great people, but we needed a plan of action to change the course of the city. In order to survive, Miami had to become attractive and competitive once again.

      Competition is something I loved, something I learned from sports, and something I translated to politics and my term as mayor. My goal was to make Miami attractive to investors and businesses—attractive to people looking for a place to live and a city to call home. How did we make this happen? Government began to invest in the people, places, and things that create a climate of attraction for people and business.

      First, government must act as a partner: not a solution, not a hindrance. Next, you invest in the things that create a sense of place, the things that make a place worth living.

      Take Downtown Miami, for example. No major building had gone up in more than twenty years prior to my administration. It had zero residential life, and became a ghost town after five o’clock. So I sat down with Jorge Pérez, a friend and real estate developer. Jorge told me he would not build a single family home in Miami, much less a major project, because government in Miami simply didn’t care about the way downtown looked and operated. If City Hall doesn’t invest in the neighborhood, why should he?

      I told him things were going to change, and they did. We began to invest in all our neighborhoods, doing the things citizens should expect from their government. We put money into safety, infrastructure, the arts, picking up the garbage, fixing the streets, making our city livable once again. We would call it “Safe, clean, and green!”

       Aware of our plans to build a baywalk that would extend for miles on our bay front, Jorge decided to test our resolve, to determine whether our words would match our actions. Prior to moving forward on his first project, Jorge set one condition: that we build a $4 million baywalk lined with beautiful art in the area abutting the project. We agreed. As a result, Jorge built One Miami, the first residential project in Downtown Miami in decades. He would become one of the largest real estate developers in Miami and among the largest in the world.

      Having worked in the private sector all my life, I knew that developers (and for that matter, most businesses) are hesitant to be pioneers. However, time and time again, I had witnessed what happens when you convince one prominent pioneer to lead the way: others quickly follow. And follow they did. Our initial investment produced a private sector explosion to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, a threefold increase in our tax base, and a skyline rated third best in the United States, trailing only New York and Chicago.