Manny A. Diaz, former two-term mayor of the City of Miami, FL, USA and author of the book Miami Transformed: Rebuilding America One Neighborhood, One City at a Time, addressed ITE Annual Meeting and Exhibit attendees at the opening session on Monday, August 3, with a powerful presentation on how a city that was once number one in poverty, crime, and unemployment rebuilt itself into a vibrant, economically thriving community that people now flock to for its many opportunities.
Miami’s dramatic rebirth as a thriving, prosperous city in some ways reflects Diaz’s own personal history of rising from challenges that came from having to leave his native home of Havana, Cuba to make a new life with his family in Miami in 1961. His parents took many odd jobs to make ends meet, and Manny worked his way up from a minimum wage job that Miami programs enabled him to obtain at an early age to help the family. Having gained much from Miami to build a new life, Diaz committed himself to giving back to the city, which in 2000 was referred to as Paradise Lost by TIME magazine. He ran for Mayor in 2001 and won, despite never before holding an elected office. He went on to win the election for a second term in 2005.
Diaz explained that the Miami we see today was quite different from when he took office—it was #1 drugs, murder, poverty, and riots. The unemployment rate was higher at that time than during the recent great recession. Diaz described a filthy, dirty city, that was under state financial oversight. Fast forward to today, and Miami has an unemployment rate of under 4 percent, with Forbes magazine declaring it the cleanest large city in America.
How did that change happen in 15 years?
Diaz explained that he entered office with both an internal and external strategy to make Miami successful. First, he set a goal and vision that would make people and businesses want to move back into the city. He worked on changing the government culture and structure, bringing people from the private sector who were willing to do public service for a few years. He created a vertical structure like in the private sector, and worked to let employees know exactly what was expected of them, aligning every employee with the overall vision for Miami. He worked to change political relations, rewrote internal processes, and provided employees with the tools and technology to succeed. He also aligned fiscal resources to the city’s needs, so that the budget reflected the priorities.
The external strategy included restoring confidence and trust in the government, showing citizens and businesses that the government was committed to being a true partner and willing to invest. He invested in the basics that work: economic opportunity, job creation, education, affordable housing, public safety, and infrastructure. From there, the change started to take hold. Miami’s education rating went from a D to a B and the city became one of the top 10 job generators in the United States. Diaz committed over 10 billion dollars to infrastructure, essentially rebuilding the city.
For more on transportation's role in Miami's transformation, stay tuned to the October 2015 ITE Journal, which will have a complete article.