All tagged condos

The Social Origins of the Miami Condo

The catastrophic collapse of Champlain Towers South has drawn much attention to Miami-Dade’s condo boom of the 1970s and 80s. In “The Social Origins of the Miami Condo” Deborah Dash Moore and PLATFORM’s Matthew Gordon Lasner—as historians and as individuals with family connections to the Miami condo—contend that this proliferation was fueled not just by pursuit of profits and the “Florida dream” of affordable leisure but by the sense of community such buildings offered. As more Americans could afford a leisurely retirement, many sought homes that offered things to do and people to do them with, including high-rises. Miami’s condo boom was also driven by the emergence of the city as a center of Jewish American life, with Jewish builders and architects like Morris Lapidus catering to a largely Jewish clientele. While the tragedy at Surfside is an urgent reminder of the fragility of condo ownership and a call for new safeguards, Lasner and Moore reminder us to also remember the social void that the Miami condo filled.