When did Miami become all about skyrocketing luxury housing costs and Michelin stars? | Editorial

We knew residential housing prices were out of control. But we didn’t know they were this bad.

It turns out Miami leads the world — the world — in the jump in a city’s luxury housing market in a year. It went up a stunning 26% from the third quarter of 2020 to the third quarter of 2021, according to a Miami Herald story based on the latest luxury sales report issued by the British-based Knight Frank firm.

That’s more than Seoul (23%), Shanghai (21%), San Francisco (20%) or Los Angeles (18%).

And this is the first time Miami has ranked at the top since the index was created in 2007. This is a report that looks at the “most desirable and expensive property in a given location.”

OK, we get it. Miami is a great place to live. But if the most luxurious housing is climbing like that, where does it leave the rest of us?

Michelin Guide in Miami

And then there’s the move by Visit Florida, the state’s marketing organization, to bring the prestigious Michelin Guide to Florida. That’s the publication that rates restaurants and brings international cache to those who win its coveted stars. Founded in France more than a century ago, it had expanded to four metro areas in the U.S. — and now Miami, along with Orlando and Tampa.

Big prestige apparently comes with a big price tag. Visit Florida and the three local tourism agencies will be paying a combined $1.5 million over the next three years — in tax money, of course — for the privilege. That’s 10 times more than originally expected and the contract isn’t even considered to be public record though it will be paid by tourist taxes.

Miami certainly has wonderful eateries well worth a Michelin star or two, but what does it say that this community continues to strive for so many things beyond the reach of average residents? Miami needs its middle class. It needs its working class.

We’ve said it about the so-called tech wave as well: Regular residents need to benefit from these changes to our community. We need jobs that pay a living wage, places to live that aren’t spiraling out of reach and restaurants that don’t cost an entire paycheck.

Heck, we’d like a waterfront view, even. Yet we’re about to lose one of Brickell’s last public green spaces on Biscayne Bay if land owned by a historic church is sold to developers as proposed. Why should that vista be increasingly the domain of the wealthy?

We’ve been considered a playground for the rich forever. Isn’t it time to be something more?