OVERVIEW:
Miami, known as the “Magic City,” is the southernmost city of Florida. Part of the South Florida region, it is 20 miles from Fort Lauderdale, 106 miles from Naples and 156 miles from Key West. It was founded in 1843 by William F. English and a group of settlers and slaves that followed him to the area. The city was finally incorporated in 1896 thanks to a deal made by Julia Tuttle to extend the Florida East Coast Railroad into Miami. The population of the city itself is around 404,000 people. Miami is the 43rd most populous city in the U.S. The South Florida metropolitan area, which includes Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, had a combined population of more than 5.4 million people, ranked sixth in the United States, (behind Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX,) and was the largest metropolitan area in the Southeastern United States. As of the census of 2000, there were 362,470 people, 134,198 households, and 83,336 families residing in the city.
Miami is one of the country’s most important financial centers. It is the major center of regional commerce, and boasts a strong international business community. According to the ranking of world cities undertaken by the Globalization and World Cities Study Group & Network (GaWC) and based on the level of presence of global corporate service organizations, Miami is considered a “Gamma World City”.
Because of its proximity to Latin America, Miami serves as the headquarters of Latin American operations for more than 1400 multinational corporations, including AIG, American Airlines, Cisco, Disney, Exxon, FedEx, Kraft Foods, Microsoft, Oracle, SBC Communications, Sony, and Visa International. Several large companies are headquartered in or around Miami, including but not limited to: Alienware, Bacardi, Brightstar Corporation, Burger King, Carnival Cruise Lines, Espírito Santo Financial Group, Greenberg Traurig, Interval International, Lennar, Norwegian Cruise Lines, Perry Ellis International, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Ryder Systems, Telefonica USA, TeleFutura, Telemundo, U.S. Century Bank, and World Fuel Services. Miami International Airport and the Port of Miami are among the nation’s busiest ports of entry, especially for cargo from South America and the Caribbean. Additionally, downtown Miami has the largest concentration of international banks in the country. Miami was also the host city of the 2003 Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations, and is one of the leading candidates to become the trading bloc's headquarters.
Tourism is also an important industry: the beaches of Greater Miami draw visitors from across the country and around the world, and the Art Deco nightclub district in South Beach (in Miami Beach) is widely regarded as one of the most glamorous in the world. However, it is important to note that Miami Beach is not a part of the city of Miami. Even major TV networks sometimes forget this, as when Good Morning America visited Miami Beach and Charles Gibson thanked the mayor of Miami (but he was standing next to the mayor of Miami Beach). In addition to these roles, Miami is also an industrial center, especially for stone quarrying and warehousing.
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