Throughout my life, I have heard things about Miami–both good & bad–but always extreme. It’s either a really fun & exciting party town with a lot of things to do, or it’s a city of chaos that one is desperate to get out of. This Spring Break, I had decided to make the best of my last Spring Break (I’m graduating this spring) and take a short trip to Miami. I had no agenda. I just wanted to explore and see what the city had to offer. I wanted to experience the culture and get to know what the people were like.
After spending only roughly two days there, I got quite a culture shock to Miami & South Florida! As soon as I drove into Palm Beach County–EVERYTHING CHANGED. Suddenly, the land was saturated with housing developments and royal palm trees! (Goodbye countryside) Along with that shift, something else happened. The drivers started becoming increasingly aggressive! It was as if no one could allow there to be space between you & the next car. If there was a spot ahead of you then someone from behind would speed up and cut you off without using their turn signal. And if that wasn’t bad enough, then drivers would slow down when they got in front of you!
Everywhere you looked in Miami-Dade County, there were houses & palm trees. It seemed like housing developers had free reign over where they could build, i.e. everywhere. There was only one type of planning when it came to designing neighborhoods: stuff as many houses as you can into a small area and fill in the cracks with palm trees (so people have pseudo privacy). There were no forests, even though it looked like there were when driving above the city on I-95.