Overtown was once the Harlem of the South. Count Basie played the clubs. Ella Fitzgerald sang to packed houses. A thriving Black business district served a community denied access to segregated Miami Beach.
Then came I-95. The highway project deliberately routed through Overtown, demolishing homes and businesses, severing the neighborhood from downtown. What the highway didn't destroy, urban renewal finished. Overtown's population fell from 40,000 to under 10,000.
For decades, Overtown languished. Empty lots and neglected buildings marked where a community once thrived. Poverty concentrated. Crime rose. The neighborhood that birthed Miami's Black middle class became a symbol of urban abandonment.
Now investment returns—and longtime residents view it warily. New developments promise renewal but often mean displacement. The people who survived the worst years wonder if they'll benefit from the better ones.
Overtown's revival must be measured not just in property values but in whether the community that endured rebuilds—or gets pushed aside again.
