I just landed in Miami for the annual Elevate conference that is taking place here at the Fontainebleau Hotel. I'm an ambassador for the event and I'm also moderating a panel on Tuesday afternoon about resident experiences in multi-family buildings. So for the next few days, I suspect I'll be writing about the conference and some of my takeaways.
I love Miami. It's one of my favorite cities. I love the weather. I love the vibe. I love the entrepreneurial spirit. And I love that Spanish can feel like the first language here. It's almost always the first thing I hear when I get off the plane and there's something oddly comforting about that even though I don't speak a word of it. Maybe once I've mastered French I'll turn to Spanish.
What's less great about Miami, though, is the traffic. Between Art Basel and the herd of elephants on the beach that everyone is talking about right now, the traffic in this city is bad. Like, Toronto bad. As I write this post, I'm looking out the window at Collins Avenue, and it's been completely jammed the entire time.
The Miami region is car oriented and car-oriented cities do not deal well with sudden spikes in demand. It usually breaks them. They're also harder to scale up. So this region will have some big decisions to make as it continues to grow. That said, I'm noticing a lot more bike lanes across Miami and Miami Beach, and lot more people cycling and using e-scooters. That's good.
I know there's a fairly large contingent of Toronto real estate people here this week, so if you're also in town and attending Elevate, please do get in touch.
