How to Survive in South Florida: Areas of Miami that aren't exactly safe....

As with any large metropolitan area anywhere in the world, the Greater Miami area has sections where I would not recommend passing through at night - either in a car or, worse yet, on foot. The rule of thumb for avoiding criminals in South Florida is “stick to the nice affluent neighborhoods, don’t go to the poorer sections of Miami-Dade County.”

First, let’s be clear that when most people talk about Miami, they’re not just talking about the City of Miami itself (with its 400,000+ inhabitants), they’re actually referring to Miami-Dade County, which has a population of 2,693,117 or even the larger Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach Metropolitan Statistical Area, with its 6,000, 000+ inhabitants. I’m a native South Floridian, and I know that most of us think of Miami-Dade County as Miami; everything above the Dade-Broward line is not Miami.

Second, I hate generalizing, especially when it comes to race relations and especially when it comes to race relations in the U.S. Unfortunately, most of the dangerous areas in Miami happen to be where the poorest residents happen to live.

In the City of Miami proper, it’s wise to be wary in the following neighborhoods:

• Liberty City
• Overtown
• West Coconut Grove
• Little Haiti
• Parts of Little Havana

In the rest of the county, it’s perhaps a good idea to drive (or walk) as fast as possible through any neighborhoods that look like they’ve been left to rot by the rest of the community. This is sometimes easier said than done; one minute you’re walking through a really nice neighborhood where all the residences and local businesses are well-maintained, attractive and tidy, only to step into an area where everything looks dingy, downtrodden, and the passersby look at you with barely hidden suspicion, resentment or even anger.

If you’re a pedestrian or bike rider, there are almost no safe places for you in Miami. The entire South Florida area was built up in the 20th and 21st Centuries, so the infrastructure (road networks, city layouts, shopping districts, business areas, government centers, etc.) is designed around cars and other powered vehicles. If you’ve been told that you can’t really survive in South Florida (or any major city in Florida, for that matter), it’s true. The roads here are designed with maximum vehicle capacity and traffic flow in mind, not the needs of lowly non-car owning schleps or silly-ass bike riders. Miami is the 4th most dangerous metro area for pedestrians in the U.S.; I’ve seen drivers actually speed up when they see a person standing at a crosswalk with no signal rather than stop and let the poor person cross the street.

And even those safe upscale areas such as Brickell, Kendall, Doral, and Coral Gables are not immune from crime. I live in a gated community near Doral, and we’ve had our share of burglaries, assaults, acts of vandalism, and even a couple of homicides since I moved into my house in 1978.