Miami
Cuban refugees built a $534B gateway on limestone at sea level. By 2026: Latin America's capital or climate's first major casualty.
Miami exists because a freeze killed everything else. In 1895, a catastrophic frost destroyed Florida's citrus crops—except in the subtropical south, where Julia Tuttle's orange blossoms survived. She sent those blossoms to railroad tycoon Henry Flagler as proof, convincing him to extend his Florida East Coast Railway to a mosquito-infested swamp. Miami incorporated in 1896 with 300 residents.
The city that emerged was a creature of speculation and seasonal tourism—boom in the 1920s, bust by 1926, revived by World War II training camps. But modern Miami was born on January 1, 1959, when Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba. Within three years, 248,000 Cubans fled to Miami, most believing their exile temporary. They were doctors, lawyers, and business owners who rebuilt their institutions in a new land. The Freedom Tower processed 650,000 refugees who transformed a sleepy resort town into the capital of Latin America north of the border.
Wave after wave followed: the 1980 Mariel boatlift, the 1990s balsero crisis, the 2022-2025 'Walking Generation' of 514,000 crossing on foot. Each wave brought new skills and new connections. Today, 60% of Miami-Dade County is Cuban-origin, and the city functions as the Western Hemisphere's switching station. Brickell Avenue holds the largest concentration of international banks in the United States. Miami International Airport handles 78% of all U.S. air exports to Latin America. The metro economy reached $534 billion in 2023, built on being the place where two continents do business.
But Miami sits on porous limestone at six feet elevation—exactly the sea level rise projected by 2100. The ocean has already risen six inches since 2000. Sunny-day flooding is up 400% in Miami Beach since 2006. Insurance premiums have tripled to $4,200 annually. By 2026, the city faces an impossible calculation: the same geography that makes it a gateway to Latin America makes it ground zero for climate risk. Whether Miami adapts or becomes a cautionary tale depends on whether it can engineer its way out of its own geology.