IN-PERSON Barcelona. Section A

Abstract

On June 24, 2021, a 12-story beachfront condominium tower collapsed in the middle of the night at Surfside near Miami, launching serious concerns about which neglected high-rises may go next. This paper will address that grim reality through the lens of Critical Urban Geography, looking at Florida’s cities as cautionary tales about the intersectional impacts of both climate crisis as well as haphazard development. Florida, in the century since the peak of its development boom, has evolved into perhaps the 21st century’s most contested and contradictory State in the USA. It is the third most populous State, but it’s virtually constant population growth suggests that “nobody is from there.” For the past five decades, Disney World has provided a model for that growth as well, forsaking sustainable development for rapidly and carelessly constructed “happiest places on Earth.” An increasingly antagonistic legislature has turned against Disney’s cultural production, seeking to maintain Florida’s fragile status as a ‘Red State’ through its surreal 21st century. This paper will address the histories and current realities of Florida’s urban hodgepodge, focusing on its three largest city clusters and one building of interest in each: The heavily neglected Jade Winds Condominiums in Miami, the razed Hotel Fort Gatlin in Orlando, and the recently renovated Hotel Floridan in downtown Tampa. I will draw upon archival research, repeat photography of pre-Disney tourist postcards, and other fieldwork I undertook between 2020-2023.