Yes, I’m serious
I was at Miami’s South Beach recently and caught myself marveling at the same three things over and over again. Okay, I marveled at quite a few things. But three design features kept appearing again and again. South Beach is great because it is the perfect scale, offers extraordinary public access and celebrates its history with a fun twist.
Most people would recognize this. I am not exactly breaking new ground here. But this afternoon, I was touring around Downtown Memphis and realized some striking similarities.
Public Access
South Beach is successful because, first and foremost, it has an awesome beach. Many Memphians have experienced a beach, usually behind a condo property in the panhandle of Florida. I think we’d all agree that South Beach is a different animal.
One of the things that make it different is that it is completely accessible while still being supported by urban amenities. The beach is treated like a central park. The east side of Ocean Drive looks across walking paths, gathering spots and obviously the beach on the Atlantic Ocean. The west side of Ocean Drive is lined with hotels, apartments, restaurants and retailers. The area is bookended with taller buildings. But every bit of it is inviting. The area screams come on in and walk around.
If you have ever stood in the riverfront park just west of Island Drive, you have experienced something similar. Henry Turley could have pushed Harbor Town right up to the high-water mark and put the main drag through the center of the development. But that would have limited enjoyment of the public space with river views to those who could buy a 40 foot strip of it. Instead, neighbors can walk to it and visitors can drive to it because it is open and accessible to everyone.
Much of our riverfront is like this and most of our in-town parks are as well. Kinelworth separates Overton Park from homes lining the west side of the street, for instance. This may seem like a silly thing to be excited about. But I believe that this balance between developing private real estate while maintaining public access to amenities, in the end, makes both projects more valuable.
Preservation with a Twist
The Delano and the Fontainebleau hotels are the poster children for the Miami scene. They have reinvented themselves as the hottest see and be seen spots around. And they have done this by adding to the historic character of their properties, not destroying it.
Along Ocean Drive, this can be seen again and again. The iconic Colony and Boulevard hotels have modernized their rooms and their lobbies. But they celebrate their history through restored signage, architectural lighting and sidewalk cafes. The 1930s era Clevelander Hotel built a pool in the 1950s. In any other city this place would have been bulldozed by 1985. Instead, the pool that is practically on the sidewalk has become one of the most exciting spectacles on the beach with newly designed bars placed anywhere you may need a drink.
Now I know the Peabody lobby and the Madison rooftop and Beale Street don’t exactly compare in this scenario. But when you think how you felt discovering Itta Bena or what it took to meld the historic flavor with modern touches at the Majestic or the grandeur of Court Square Center hopefully you get the picture. Historic preservation doesn’t have to be stuffy. Sometimes it can be celebrated and even pushed to a new limit. Memphians get that.
Café Ole’s deck is not historically correct, for instance. But Cooper-Young has been transformed by putting new twists on old buildings. Memphians have preserved great amounts of our history by reinventing what we do with the buildings that once housed it.
Scale
Most of South Beach consists of three, five, seven story buildings. They line the sidewalk. It is not too crowded but never lonely. The scale is perfect to make people comfortable 24-hours a day.
The buildings are treated appropriately. Awnings to create an anchor. A bit of architectural detail, even though minimal in this art-deco land. Doors that are where doors are supposed to be. The architecture never overwhelms and at the same time never disappoints.
Memphis has a history with this. When people speak of the Downtown renaissance, they aren’t thinking about high rises seen from miles away. They aren’t thinking about the parking lots that are so out of place in a city. They are thinking about how they feel walking down South Main where the tallest building is three stories. They are imagining living at the apartments behind the ballpark. They are comfortable because the scale is right much of the time.
Newly evolving areas like Broad Street understand this. There is economic value in a comfortable urban scale. Why else would new malls be built to resemble historic Main Streets and Town Squares… because the scale creates value.
South Beach’s scale, eye to historic detail and preservation of public access are major ingredients in its success. Memphians would do well to recognize this and spend a little more time celebrating our propensity toward it.
I hope you were kidding.
South Beach and Memphis TN should not be in the same sentence. I lived in Miami, then Boca….and in east memphis then Germantown.
What MAKES Miami is its PEOPLE, and the distinct international culture, rooted in Latin families…language…..food…..custom…awareness..lifestyle….water environment.
As a Floridian even now, I find any comparison quite stupid, having experienced both for years and years…and I’m sure my Miami spouse may laugh at you, or be quite insulted indeed.
I bet you think the residents of Miami like eating a lot of cheap fried chicken and BBQ too ?
I can’t think of another US city that is so much past Memphis, TN than perhaps Miami..certainly not in the South !
Have you seen the faces ?? hear the languages ?? See the beauty all around you ?? Heck, even the people of Miami, especially the women are about 20 times more attractive and in shape than 95% of the people of Memphis, TN !
I’ll give you this : you have a LOT of nerve making ANY comparison on any level…architectural, societal, cultural, entertainment, world class food, language, finance, or anything else.
Are you a native MEMPHIAN ? you must be, because nobody from Florida or for that matter a place like Atlanta would dare speak of memphis, TN and Miami in the same paragraph…..
Amazing, but I did get a laugh
ON THE BEACH
Funny you would speak of ethnic diversity in a positive sense seeing as…
“they are Negroes, certainly not Caucasions for heaven’s sake”.
So does everyone in Miami call them “Negroes” or were you the only one stuck in the 1870’s?
I’ll give you this: you have a LOT of nerve making ANY comparison on any level seeing as you go around referring to African Americans as “Negroes”. Amazing.
…and finally, you obviously missed the entire point and comparison of the post. In fact, it is entirely possible based on your comments that you did not even read it.
Beachbound (and any other Floridians):
Smart City Memphis will be putting up another post later this week, also about Miami, that you might appreciate more. Please stay tuned.
In the meantime, I’d like to hear about how you think public access to amenities and management of those amenities might be improved in Memphis vs. your experience in Miami. I am curious if you think there is value in historic preservation efforts and if existing efforts could have been better using a Miami approach. How does the scale of Miami’s historic destinations like South Beach differ from those in other cities and Memphis? How do the suburbs differ in scale and how do they relate to the strengths or weaknesses of the core city in Miami vs. Memphis vs. other cities?
I do think there is extraodinary truth in the comment about international culture. I would like to see a future post about Memphis’s need to move from a bi-cultural to a multi-cultural society. This is likely going to be a huge economic development driver in the future, in addition to just making cities more interesting and at times politically easier to navigate.
John: Thanks for the reason rather than the rant. There are more than 60 languages spoken in Memphis homes now, but it seems that the future and economy here – unlike some other cities – will not be driven by immigrants. It is indeed a major economic driver and needs much more attention here.
This is funny-odd. I’m a Caucasion, I don’t insist that someone who is another race, call me ‘white’ or ‘European-American’.
If an Asian has a problem with being correctly refered to as ‘Mongoloid’, that’s their problem. If a dark-skinned person of sub-Saharan ancersty has a problem with being refered to as ‘Negroid’, that’s their problem.
It’s not like you’re mis-categorizing anthropological groups within mankind.
By the way, just about everybody in Florida, especially Miami with a broad and diverse Latin culture already knows the origin of ‘negro’ the word..it’s in our own Spanish and/or Portuguese languages, and of course it means ‘black’.
In French speaking cultures, we say ‘noir’, we certainly don’t say something anywhere close to ‘African-anything’.
For years leaders like Martin King clearly used the nomenclature of ‘Negro’. That’s clear as a bell. Hell, many people used the word ‘colored’…which is fairly accurate in most societies. Since when is ‘people of color’ inaccurate ? Well, it’s not inaccurate in the least.
Many people if color aren’t ‘black’ as we know it. However all dark-skinned people are ‘colored’ or ‘people if color’.
Caucasians aren’t colored or people of color.
For unknown reasons, the art of naming dark-skinned American citizens has morphed into some bizarre politically correct, and massaged ‘zone’ after ‘zone’.
Black, Negro, African, African-American, Colored etc etc….not to mention crazy ‘slang’, like ‘brutha’, ‘dawg’, ‘mynigga’, and a host of other, hardly understood labels used internally and externally. Caucasioans, and Mongoloids have not gone through that sort of ‘search’ for ‘labeling’ for a lot of reasons.
Memphis TN is NOT some bastion of cultural/ethnic diversity. That’s crazy to remotely suggest that viz language, food, family history, etc when comparing Memphis to MIAMI. That’s absolutely nutty.
Let me give you a real example. Blacks in Memphis are really nothing like many of the Black found in Miami….nothing. Dark-skinned residents in Miami emanate from various parts of the GLOBE (not Miaaiaaippi or Eastern Arkansas for godsake). Many dark-skinned Negroes in Miami are Latin..from Dominican Republic, Cuba, Colombia, Brazil and all over the islands. Other dark-skinned Negroes in Miami have long heritages in Africa (Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Sudan, etc etc) and a huge amount from Haiti. If you think these strong cultural and educational backgrounds are analogous to the cultural and educational backgrounds of those dark-skinned residents of Memphis, TN, you are one stupid individual indeed.
A similar comment could be made about the Anglo/white population in Miami. They, too, come from all over the world, not just Europe (Miami has tons of Italians, tons of Canadians, south americans, Jews, and a ton of New Yorkers from several ethnicities…LOL.
There is no city in the United States (or really the world) like MIAMI, FLORIDA and surrounding area. Memphis TN is not even in the same universe (culturally speaking)..Miami is in its own LEAGUE. Most any fool can see that on just visiting once, and you don’t have to live there as I did to conclude that. Memphis is primitive by comparison…in architecture, style, flavor, culture, diversity, language, and by most every other metric I can think of. That’s not good or bad, it’s just that different even to the untrained ‘eye’.
Miami is 24/7, 365…good or bad. It’s vastly another reality, a reality that reflects globalizaton….something Memphis TN knows really nothing about now or from a historical perspective.
Miami is a dynamic, fast-moving coastal/ocean PORT city..Memphis is an overgrown river town with paddle-wheel and barge ‘history’.
The differences however should be respected, not conflated.
If 60 languages are spoken in Memphis TN, I would ask how many posters here actually are at least bi-lingual. My bet is probably less than 2%. I certainly speak more than one language but my experience in Memphis is that is not commonplace and usual in any part of the Mid-South/Mississippi unless you count ‘Ebonics’.
@John
Using Miami as a model for Memphis for historical preservation or anything else is not viable .
Miami knows it’s a Global City..a true destination. That history was acted upon 100 years earlier. Port cities bring trade, people together, cultural interaction, thereby a certain awareness. Memphis has no such similar awareness.
Miami and its residents believe in their being special, being different, being coastal, being deisrable. This emanates in part from the physical environment upon which Miami built its reputation (initially).
Miami built its reputation deliberately..and somewhat dangerously, but it has paid off. Miami marketed itself globally….but not through shallow self-aggrandizing empty promotion, but by using what was in their faces…i.e. the coastline, the beaches, the entertainment, the fabulous food choices of global fare, the celebrity, the exclusiveness, the partying, etc.
And yes, the ‘danger’. I hate to admit it, but the series “Miami Vice” did wonders for the city…bad and good. The intrigue about Miami was worldwide. That was marketing extrodinaire, aided by the miracle of television.
Hell, the intrigue surrounding the drug trade even promoted Miami..lol…but a real negative longterm…it took a few years for Miami to shake that negative image for sure.
Miami was awash with money, cash…legal and illegal, and most times you couldn’t tell the difference…lol. A city with a lot of cash can do a lot with the cash (good and bad).
Memphis might be wasting its time trying to extract too many lessons from Miami, FL. Memphis is closer to a city like Jacksonville, FL and that’s not a very good comparison either for modeling in my opinion.
Memphis is unlikely to become or be regarded as an international city such as Miami…it doesn’t have the attitude found in the same groups…..no way. People make dynamic cities, right ? Just look around here in Memphis, listen closely…then go to Miami and feel the energy and the attitudes through culture. It’s like night and day.
Shekel, how do they feel about sodomites down there in Miami? Is Miami gay-friendly or more Bible-believing? lol, what a freaking hypocrite you are….
@packrat
what’s your deal with over-personalization/attacks ?
and what’s telling is that YOUR ATTACKS are allowed to remain on this website, which shows that Memphis hasn’t joined the rest of the United States and still lives in the shadow of the worst state in the Union…Mississippi.
you MUST be from MISSISSIPPI….lol, or is it AR-kan-sas?