Watch: B1M video takes a closer look at Miami, with help from TRD

Popular YouTube series “Tomorrow’s Build”, from The B1M, looked into a phenomenon that will be familiar to any TRD reader. As the video explains, Miami is in the midst of a skyscraper boom, with surging population and an increase in white collar jobs and corporate HQs relocating to “Wall Street South.” That’s happening despite increased risk from climate change events.

The B1M spoke to TRD’s Hiten Samtani, who explained who’s coming to Miami, and why. “Miami has become a magnet for the well-heeled in tech, finance… and startup land,” Samtani noted. All of this puts the city in line to become a new world financial center in the next 10 years.

The video points to several major commercial projects, including One Brickell City Center and One Bayfront Plaza, and soon-to-come luxury resi skyscrapers like the Waldorf Astoria Hotel & Residences, as indicators of the city’s rising status on the international scene. But the video also cited a “double-edged sword for locals,” with new investment bringing increased rent and major infrastructure challenges.

The larger problem, as the B1M’s team presents it, is the threat of sea level rise, which could cause an incredible amount of displacement for locals. As the video notes, the city will have to spend billions of dollars to prevent the worst of these threats. The B1M team also broke down the radical increase in land prices away from the beach, as neighborhoods like Little Haiti have started demanding more money for elevated plots that are less likely to flood.

Watch the video for more information and a full breakdown from the B1M and TRD’s Samtani.