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Seventeen years ago, when the City of Miami Gardens incorporated, it began investing in community and health initiatives, infrastructure and economic development. Today, the payoff is evident. Vibrant and diverse, Miami Gardens has seen steady growth and engages residents and visitors with thriving sports, music, and cultural and culinary offerings.
The City’s strength stems from its forward-thinking residents and businesses, who have worked with the City government to pursue new and innovative programs and to create a sustainable community for generations to come. As the third-largest city in Miami-Dade County, Miami Gardens is home to teachers, seniors, students, doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs and others. It is the largest predominantly African-American municipality in Florida and boasts thousands of Caribbean and Hispanic residents.
Anyone who enjoys major South Florida events has probably spent time in Miami Gardens.
It is the home of the Hard Rock Stadium, the Miami Dolphins football team, the University of Miami Hurricanes football team, the Orange Bowl football game and the future home of the Miami Dolphins training facility. Annually, the city attracts visitors from all over the world for events such as Jazz in the Gardens Music Festival, which showcases world-renowned artists and performers, the Miami Tennis Open and, most recently, the coveted Super Bowl LIV.
In 2014, residents of Miami Gardens voted to approve a $60 million general obligation bond to redevelop the City’s parks to provide activities beyond athletics. It included facilities that focus on science, technology, engineering, mathematics, hospitality, art and entertainment as well as non-traditional sports. The plans also include the development of a dedicated senior center to provide programs to engage the City’s older adults.
The City’s ability to innovate came to the forefront during the pandemic. Parks and Recreation brought programs online as they adapted creatively to provide enriching virtual camps and classes. One program, for example, taught children and teens how to write graphic and comic novels.
A healthy City focuses on the overall wellbeing of its residents. Live Healthy Miami Gardens is a City initiative that relies on community involvement to promote a healthy lifestyle for all who live, work and play in Miami Gardens. It began in February 2014 as a partnership between the City and the Health Foundation of South Florida and is now funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Live Healthy Miami Gardens is a collective impact initiative, backed by forty-six (46) coalition member organizations and more than 100 individuals, to drive city-wide changes that measurably improve the health and life expectancy of residents. The initiative develops, implements and sustains effective community-level health strategies for five (5) health impact areas: alcohol, tobacco and other drugs; healthy eating and improved nutrition; mental health; physical activity and primary healthcare.
Great health allows people to enjoy their lives to the fullest. The City is committed to making sure residents and visitors incorporate health and wellness into their daily routines.
Providing a safe and sustainable environment is an important part of the City’s focus on quality of life. The Keep Miami Gardens Beautiful initiative is one of more than 600 community-based affiliates in the national Keep America Beautiful network, aimed at transforming public spaces into beautiful places. The beautification programs include urban forestry, landscape projects and grant management, with the goal of promoting balance toward an environmentally sustainable community.
Keep Miami Gardens Beautiful works with residents and businesses to bring awareness to the social impacts and benefits of a healthy tree canopy, reduce the presence of litter, recycle and offer overall beautification. In 2020, the Keep Miami Gardens Beautiful program was named a Keep America Beautiful President’s Circle Awardee. This prestigious award honors the city’s outstanding promotion of the organization’s mission and recognizes the program’s exemplary performance as a certified Keep America Beautiful affiliate in creating clean, green and beautiful communities.
Maintaining public safety is a priority, as well. To augment the police force, the City invested in the state-of-the-art Real-Time Crime Center, allowing law enforcement personnel to have an expanded presence throughout the community using technology. The Real-Time Crime Center uses technological solutions that bring together video inputs, incident and criminal complaints, photos, national crime databases and more to deliver a single, real-time operational view in the City’s police department.
These investments in public amenities, economic development and quality of life have made Miami Gardens an epicenter of culture, commerce, sports and music. It is a trailblazing City with only more progress on the horizon – rising and flourishing with opportunities for its residents to live, work and play.
Article was originally published in the Quality Cities magazine, a publication of the Florida League of Cities.
