From the Editor
A Statistical Profile of Downtown
Urban Issues
Death, taxes, and change are the three inevitabilities. Sure there are loopholes, but sooner or later we all must confront them. If you are the average Downtowner, chances are you will outlive Miamians from other neighborhoods, unencumbered deal with taxes, and thrive in the ever-changing neighborhood.
For starters, age in downtown for the majority ranges from 25 to 44, so departure can be expected later than sooner. In effect, while older Miamians still fancy metaphors around the arrival of the 21st Century, younger Downtowners are already planning for the 22nd Century. After all, life expectancy for people currently under 30 will surpass 100. And factor in new developments in medicine, artificial intelligence, and genetics.
Secondly, the typical Downtowners are college educated and command salaries above $110,000 (per household, according to the DDA), which is the minimum required to live comfortably near beautiful Biscayne Bay. While education and income do not guarantee companionship, statistics show that at the very least you can afford a dog (39% of residents has a pet.) It has been proven that having a partner or a pet can increase your life expectancy by seven years. Not for nothing Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, said two millennia and a half ago: “Never underestimate the therapeutic value of touching.”
Thirdly, Downtowners are fit. 70% exercise regularly. Current wisdom proclaims fitness to be the panacea for physical, emotional, spiritual and intellectual health. One resident observed: “People in downtown walk everywhere (walkability is an important feature in the official Downtown brochure), bike, and eat less fat. The minute you drive to other neighborhoods or neighboring cities, Coral Gables, for example, the first thing you notice is that people are three sizes larger.” It must be noted that the resident’s observation was just that, an observation, not a scientific pronouncement.
Taxes
Downtown residential properties represent over $1 billion of Miami’s property tax base — a very high percentage of the city’s tax base. To put it bluntly, let me quote Mayor Francis Suarez: “You guys in downtown pay tons of taxes.”
Our taxes finance all kinds of things. The media reported last Friday that through the Downtown Development Authority, taxpayers granted $100,000 to the Miami Film Festival to help movie buffs find their way from South Beach to downtown. The Miami Film Festival is moving back for the 2019 edition to downtown. One surprised resident: “Downtown unsuspecting philanthropists should receive free tickets.”
Taxpayers, in one form or another, fund the Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, and a lesser-known program that brings music to the Metromover on Monday mornings. Taxpayers also contribute to funding the Miami Book Fair.
Of course, taxes also finance infrastructure, from transit and fixing potholes to sewage systems and schools. Our taxes help developers and private enterprise to flourish, which, in theory, brings more jobs.
One downside, the beneficiated workforce has no place to live. Let me rephrase that: Plenty vacancies in the luxurious high-rises but the downtown workforce can’t afford to live there.
Teachers
A middle-school teacher who used to live in downtown explained: “I make around $52,000. Subtract taxes, social security, health insurance, and I am left with some $38,000 to bring home... Ask any realtor how much housing costs in downtown.”
I asked local realtor Zoila Perez-Chanquet. The average rent for Downtown was $1600–1700 for a studio. A one-bedroom apartment averaged between $ 1700–2200. For two bedrooms rents increased to $ 2200–3000. And she cited her source: Miami Association of Realtors, last six months rental rates.
Downtown’s rebirth, AKA gentrification, said the middle-school teacher, cost her and her two children their middle-class status. “Having to spend close to $30,000 a year in housing, we quickly became the working poor.”
That she left town would be simply a sad anecdote, but for the lack of good schools for downtown children, and the fact that good schools depend on good teachers.
Change
In the book the Colossus of New York, Colson Whitehead writes something very applicable to downtown Miami: “No matter how long you have been here, you are a New Yorker the first time you say, That used to be Munsey’s, or That used to be the Tic Tac lounge…”
Going for my daily walk I had one such moment. Ten years ago, having just arrived from the Northeast, I attended a Piazzolla piano concerto at the Methodist Church in Biscayne and 4th Street. The church sold for $55 million and now is being bulldozed to clear the way for a new development. And earlier this month, for Art Week, I attended an event in what used to be Macy’s. “Oh, well,” I went on walking to finish with a sprint in what used to be Museum Park. It has been renamed Maurice A. Ferré Park, in honor of the former six-term mayor of Miami.
Downtown has changed and keeps changing physically at a vertiginous pace. Attitudes, too, are changing. Millennials, approaching the mid-thirties, are feeling the biological and social pressure to think about the future of the species. To put it biblically, love thy neighbor and multiply!
A DDA 2018 study points out an increase in families with children. The Greater Downtown has over 10,000 school-age kids, about 10% of the population. The Downtown Proper, north of the Miami River to the Omni District, and westwards from Biscayne Bay to North Miami Avenue — roughly the original city of Miami — accounts for one-third of the 92,000+ population of the Greater Downtown.
Yet, the Downtown Proper lacks adequate schools. Our Greater Downtown neighbors to the south, Brickell, do have public and private schools, with seats reserved for each local student. And plans are underway to further build. I read just the other day an announcement about a projected expansion. The office of Miami-Dade County Commissioner Eileen Higgins enthusiastically heralded it:
“The Commissioner wanted to let you all know that the item for the joint PHCD / MDCPS pilot project to build the Southside Middle School together with one floor of workforce housing passed unanimously in yesterday’s Board meeting. We’re very excited to see some progress on the schools front.”
DNA’s Education Committee Chair, Joy Prevor, promptly replied:
“Thrilled to hear! However (don’t mean to be Debbie Downer️), I want to remind all that this does not solve our schools’ issue. Yes, there will be another local option and more seats county-wide. But unless we win the magnet lottery (competing with kids from throughout the county), we are not guaranteed a school we can attend. We need to keep working on creating designated seats for Downtown residents at existing Magnet programs (just as Brickell residents are guaranteed a spot at Southside…), expanding local Magnet options such as I Prep (with designated seats for us) AND advocating for building a new, quality neighborhood school where all our residents will be assigned to send their kids (sans application/lottery).”
Can Politics, Taxes, and Change Align?
One pressing need for downtown families is good schools, but good schools require affordable housing for teachers.
Change might be on the way. On December 13, the City of Miami Commission passed unanimously litigation sponsored by District 2 Commissioner Ken Russell to mandate developers in designated zones to allocate apartments for the local workforce, which includes, teachers, police officers, hospitality workers, and even some of the upcoming artists. To qualify, you must make between 60 and 120 percent of the Miami-Dade $45,000 median.
And what waters the garden of the developers’ generosity? More density, meaning they would be able to build extra floors to offset the market-rate difference. As it stands now, 14% percent of the units in new developments will be for workforce/affordable housing. The model has successfully been tried in a voluntary manner, hence some developers are on board.
Andres Viglucci interviewed Commissioner Russel for the Miami Herald: “The idea behind the inclusionary zoning rule is to produce truly mixed-income buildings and a mixed-income community at a time when Miamians are increasingly physically separated by class.”
Downtown News caught up with Commissioner Russell. His comment:
“For Miami to be a great city, we’ve got to do a much better job of ensuring that there is a healthy mix of affordable options for our residents at all income levels. We have an incredible opportunity to test out and improve this model of inclusionary zoning in the Omni CRA neighborhood, which is one of the last areas in the downtown core where there is land available for major projects that can help us make a dent on this issue.”
Maybe hope can be added to the list of inevitables that Daniel Defoe started with his 1726 book Political History of the Devil and the rotund: “Things as certain as death and taxes…”
