Marketing the “Tropical Playground”: Issues of Exclusion and Development in Miami’s Imagery

Miami’s marketers have a long and successful history of creating and recreating imagery that draws visitors towards the ‘magic city’ or the ‘tropical playground.’ This paper investigates Miami’s marketing from an historical perspective by examining the role and legacy of various discourses emanating from powerful city actors over the past century. Spatial analysis including spatial autocorrelation and Local Moran’s I are conducted to investigate further Miami’s geographical segregation. The findings suggest that unequal, segregating and exclusive discourses have become so normalized within Miami’s marketing and political structure that change is becoming increasingly difficult as attitudes institutionalize further. Using a discourse analysis set around a framework of social exclusion and adverse incorporation, and semi-structured interviews, this paper also examines the current spatial formation of the city with insights from leading figures in Miami’s marketing industry to suggest that the right to the city is still a distant dream for Miami’s other neighborhoods and populations.