Miami’s geographical and cultural position brings a uniqe flavour to the great American tradition of cosmopolitan life.

Largest city of the southern United States, it has become in many ways the northern most city of South America

Up in the gleaming glass and steel skyscrapers of the banking and business districts, the city provides a vital link in financial relations between North and South America.

Down in the streets, the smells and sounds of Miami may recall the delicatessens and supper clubs of New York and New Jersey, strong Cuban coffee and cigars and perhaps the exotic beat o Haitian chants.

This is the place where the sun spends the winter, a sub tropical haven that never seen the snow. Even in January, the coolest month, thermometer average around 74° Fahrenheit, while the trade winds temper the summer highs.

With a good hat and the right lotions, you can enjoy this town all year round.

The city stands at the mouth of the Miami River on the shore of Biscayne Bay.

Greater Miami’s metropolitan area comprises 27 municipalities, which sprawl between the mysterious Everglade swamps and the Atlantic Ocean. The city’s population tops two million-almost half of them of Latin American and Caribbean origin.

Tallahassee, photo above, runs Florida’s state government and bureaucracy, but there’s no doubt in anybody’s mind that Greater Miami is the state’s major centre for commerce, culture and sheer urban bounce.

For tourists, the city is most famous for the bright and breezy hotels of its resort area, Miami Beach, connected to the mainland by causeways.

But massive construction at a cost of literally billions of dollars has given a dramatic new look to the downtown district, attracting business people and shoppers, as well as traditional tourists from the beaches.

Sleek office towers line Flagler Street, Biscayne Boulevard and Briekell Avenue, the Wall Street of the South. Over 200 million dollars were spent on the Southeast Financial Center alone, tallest structure south of New York and east of Houston.

With completion of the Bayside leisure complex and the ultra-modern “people- mover” (elevated train) system, renaissance in Miami has become a reality.

Yet a mere hundred years ago all was wilderness here. A handful of settlers traded with the Indians at the mouth of the Miami River, named by the Tequesta tribe to mean “Big Water”.

The pioneers lived in part by wrecking, salvaging the cargoes of ships that ran aground.

They also farmed vegetables and citrus fruit for sale in northern markets.

Sailing boats from Key West, photo below,  called every fortnight, bringing news of the outside world.

To this frontier outpost came a widow from Ohio named Julia Tuttle.

Convinced of South Florida’s potential for development, she urged railway magnate Henry Flagler to expand his Florida East Coast line south to Miami.

At first the tycoon refused, but Mrs. Tuttle persisted. Finally in 1896, the railway reached Miami. Flagler built a luxury hotel on Biscayne Bay and Miami’s course was set.

The resilient city has weathered killer hurricanes and financial collapse, the panic of the 1962 missile crisis and the usual modern big-city woes of riots and drug traffic, aggravated by a new influx of Caribbean refugees in the 1980s.

The Miami authorities seem now to have their problems well under control.

Things are looking up for Miami Beach, too.

Hugely popular in the 1920s and 30s, and again in the 50s and 60s, the resort is bounding back in favour as a new generation of holidaymakers discovers the pleasures of the “Florida Riviera”, with its silver sands and swaying palms.

Preservationists are restoring the Jazz Age hotels that line Ocean Drive in the Art Deco District, designated a national historic area. And the resort palaces along Collins Avenue are undergoing extensive remodelling.

The beach itself is bigger and better than before, right now is considered the best one around the world. The tide was lapping at the gateposts of the oceanfront hotels when the United States Army Corps of Engineers created a new strand stretching 300 feet to the highwater line.

Now, as in the 20s, there’s a boardwalk by the sea.

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