History of Miami
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point for cocaine from Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru. The drug industry brought billions of dollars into Miami, which were quickly funneled through front organizations into the local economy. Luxury car dealerships, five-star hotels, condominium developments, swanky nightclubs, major commercial developments and other signs of prosperity began rising all over the city. As the money arrived, so did a violent crime wave that lasted through the early 1990s. The popular television program Miami Vice, which dealt with counter-narcotics agents in an idyllic upper-class rendition of Miami, spread the city's image as one of America's most glamorous subtropical paradises. During the 1980s and early 1990s, many noted people visited Miami. Pope John Paul II visited in November 1987, and held an open-air mass for 150,000 people in Tamiami Park. Queen Elizabeth II and three United States presidents also visited Miami. Among them was Ronald Reagan, who had a street named after him in Little Havana. Nelson Mandela's 1989 visit to the city was marked by ethnic tensions. Mandela had praised Cuban leader Fidel Castro for his anti-apartheid support on ABC News' Nightline. Because of this, the city withdrew its official greeting and no high-ranking official welcomed him. That led to a boycott by the local African American community of all Miami tourist and convention facilities until Mandela received an official greeting. However, all efforts to resolve it failed for months, resulting in an estimated loss of over $10 million. Hurricane Andrew caused more than $20 billion in damage just south of the Miami-Dade area in 1992.
Several financial scandals involving the Mayor's office and City Commission during the 1980s and 1990s left Miami with the title of the United States' 4th poorest city by 1996. With a budget shortfall of $68 Million and its municipal bonds given a junk bond rating by Wall Street, Miami became Florida's first city to have a state appointed oversight board assigned to it in 1997. In the same year, city voters rejected a resolution to dissolve the city and make it one entity with Dade County. The City's financial problems continued until political outsider Manny Diaz was elected Mayor of Miami in 2001. The Elián González uproar was a heated custody and immigration battle in the Miami area in 2000. The controversy concerned six-year-old Elián González, who was rescued from the waters off the coast of Miami. The U.S. and the Cuban governments, his father Juan Miguel González, his Miami relatives, and the Cuban-American community of Miami were involved. The climactic stage of this prolonged battle was the April 22, 2000, seizure of Elián by federal agents, which drew the criticism of many in the Cuban-American community. During the controversy, Alex Penelas, the mayor of Miami-Dade County at the time, vowed that he would do nothing to assist the Bill Clinton administration and federal
Twenty-first century
2000s: A new era