What’s in a Name? In Miami, Everything and Nothing
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These turbulent times have me thinking about Tolstoy. Not the sweeping battlefields of War and Peace, but his searing parable How Much Land Does a Man Need? — a story about ambition, appetite, and the human tendency to want just a little more, even when “more” is the thing that ruins us.
Maybe that’s why I’ve been thinking about names and how easily they change. Marilyn Monroe, Mickey Mantle, John Wayne, Freddie Mercury, Elton John, John Legend — reinvention is practically an American pastime. And Miami, of course, has turned renaming into a competitive sport.
We’ve lived through The Bakery Centre, American Airlines Arena, the BankUnited Center, the Jackie Gleason, and Hard Rock Stadium — formerly Joe Robbie Stadium, Pro Player Park, Pro Player Stadium, Dolphin Stadium, Land Shark Stadium, and Sun Life Stadium. Around here, naming rights aren’t civic identity; they’re a revolving handout.
The Dalai Lama said things change. True enough — sometimes for the better, sometimes not. “Development” and “gentrification” now function as synonyms, depending on who’s holding the microphone or at the meeting. One person’s progress is another’s eviction notice. Who cares?
Even geography is up for grabs. The Gulf of Mexico has been rechristened the “Gulf of America.” Denali reverted to Mount McKinley. Fort Liberty went back to Fort Bragg, and Fort Moore to Fort Benning. The Kennedy Center is now “The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” Palm Beach International Airport is being renamed “Donald J. Trump International Airport.” All courtesy of Executive Order 14172, “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness.” Please release me. Let me go.
I do not approve. I prefer the Department of Defense to the Department of War, and I find no joy when some joke that the next iteration will be the Department of War Crimes.
Shakespeare wrote that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. The opposite is also true: selfishness by any other name still destroys.
Like every other fool, I’m online far too much — a captive audience to billionaire algorithms. When I scroll through developers’ renderings of South Miami, Coconut Grove, Coral Gables, Edgewater, Wynwood, Little Haiti, MiMo, Brickell, and the rest, I can’t help but pray. God help us to avoid turning everything into Ocean Drive. But ambitious people tend to believe that God helps those who help themselves. So they help themselves.
I do not want Gordon Gekko as our next mayor. There is something deeply unattractive about greed — not the quiet desire to improve one’s life, but the loud, performative selfishness that has infected a small but visible slice of our population. Many of us were raised to believe in the common good. I wasn’t a Boy Scout, but I still remember the basic values that make societies livable: ethics, morals, decency, generosity.
We are not better without a public sector. Public schools are noble, even when flawed. Public parks are beloved. Public works are imperative. Public housing is needed. Public hospitals save lives, even if they resemble The Pitt. Roads, highways, and bike paths matter – even if they take years and test patience.
The real problem isn’t the institutions. It’s the people who run them — their greed, their carelessness, their dishonesty. Corruption erodes public trust, but make no mistake: greed is the accelerant. I’m not perfect, but I’m not greedy. Like most parents, I taught my children in the Publix checkout line to share their chocolate or gum. So it’s especially galling to watch grandiose houses, redevelopment schemes, and hyper‑gentrification sold to us as “benefits to the public,” or freedom.
Tolstoy asked how much land a man needs. Miami keeps answering: more. Always more. And somehow, never enough. But there comes a point when “more” stops being ambition and becomes erasure — of community, of memory, of the public good. If we don’t draw a line, someone else will draw it for us, and they’ll draw it around everything they want to take.
