I was never a fan of the TV show Miami Vice. Mainly, I suspect, because it became popular when I did not own a television. Although Crocket and Tubbs were still making South Florida safe for ordinary decent folk by the time I had acquired a modest portable, somehow the duo struck me as Wham with guns rather than anything to be taken seriously.

Apparently I was one of the few. Miami Vice was “the biggest show on the planet for nearly ten years” and was largely filmed among the then run down art-deco geriatric ward  at the south end of  Miami Beach. These days CSI Miami is ubiquitous TV cop hokum - I don’t watch this much either. CSI, in case you haven’t caught it, is a piece of Jerry Brukenheimer twaddle where a too clever by half copy called Horatio (suspension of disbelief is stretched to the limit) solves murders (mainly) with the help of his even smarter and unfeasibly attractive forensic pals in under an hour including commercial breaks. CSI, which I have reason to believe screens at any given hour of the day and night somewhere on the planet, is mainly filmed in Hollywood with a few Miami location shots thrown in for authenticity. God knows why they bother as nothing else is authentic.

But even CSI’s minimal use of local colour is enough to convince even the casual viewer that this is a place that has not only changed radically over the last quarter century but which is a massively successful, if less than entirely safe town.

There is a lack of nostalgia and almost a ruthlessness about the way Miami has cleared much of the past and replaced it with the bright, shiny and new. Certainly Downtown Miami and much of South Beach where multiple social depravation was commonplace have benefited from this relentless drive towards the new in that they are now largely safe to walk around (not that anyone does in Downtown). It is easy to let personal safety become a preoccupation, but really Miami is no different from the rest of America so long as you follow some simple rules: know where you are going, bear in mind that ‘good’ and ‘bad’ neighbourhoods can be only a block or two apart so check things out with some local knowledge - read up but also talk to the hotel staff, avoid being conspicuous, don’t carry money you don’t need and don’t be a hero.

Miami spectacularly gives the lie to the unfounded notion that immigration hurts local economies. He city has undergone massive waves of human traffic from Cuba and elsewhere in Latin America and thrived on it. This may be the tropical south of the USA but it isn’t really ‘the south’. South Florida doesn’t have the visible baggage of racial intolerance that lingers elsewhere in the former Confederacy - helped of course by the fact that pretty much nobody lived in Florida at that time.

Nobody has benefited more from Miami’s constant reinvention than the property developers. Anyone with land in South Florida almost couldn’t help but make money in the recent past. Not only that, the tour guides and taxi drivers are eager to point out that “there’s no economic crisis here”.

This may or may not be statistically true, and of course some people must have been affected by the credit crunch, however, the business of tourism in 2009 continues to do well if the outward signs of number in hotels, in the restaurants and bars and on the beaches are any indicator. There is certainly less discounting in the retail chains than is obvious in other American cities. Miami is now the most expensive place in the United States according to the Miami Herald, a reputable regional newspaper, though a key indicator for the paper seems to be the $25 drink - not necessarily something key to indexation theory seminars at the Harvard Business School. 

Armed with that knowledge the visitor to Miami can plan for an enormous variety of people watching opportunities - in cafes, in stores, by the pool, in the clubs, on the beach and even on the bus. The centre of this voyeurism is the aforementioned South Beach (named SoBe by someone who completely missed the point of New York’s SoHo). These days the formerly run down neighbourhood is substantially renovated  (though this is still a work in progress) full of the young and beautiful and officially ’saved’ as a national treasure. What used to keep people away now invites them in. So it goes.

South Beach is certainly photogenic, undeniably architecturally important and without doubt expensive. Ocean Drive’s hotels and bars certainly rack up the prices - but go back onto Collins or Washington, Ocean’s immediate north-south parallels, and considerably better value can be found - though not always.  This is a resort town - you need to shop around.

The beach itself is vast, shallow, clean and life guarded from famously photogenic huts save a couple of hours adjacent to sunrise and sundown. The water is usually pretty good.  It’s a beach even for people who don’t like beaches.

Things do remind you that South Beach’s renaissance is a recent phenomenon. Despite its reputation as a district where the ‘pink dollar’ wields both political and economic power and a significant concentration of rainbow flags, 2009 saw South Beach’s first Gay Pride event. Maybe everyone was just too laid back to get it together till now, but somehow I doubt it. Despite the initial impression that the parade was intended as a ‘how absurdly tiny is my dog’ festival, the official theme focused on what were strangely described as “legacy couples”. In English these are people who, far from being dead, have been together for some considerable time - 20, 30, 40 even 65 years - in honour of which they get to wave from a soft top VW Beetle - the Gaymobile of choice. Anybody who sticks it out for that long deserves a round of applause in my book - hardly an outrageous event, but right to the point and rather touching.

Despite all its colour and vibrancy, South Beach has its irritations. Miami might be part of an English speaking nation, but hereabouts having a few words of tourist Spanish can be a considerable help. Many of the locals have no English and, if their attitudes are anything to go by, President Obama (for whom the city voted in large measure) has his work cut out in restoring English as preferred the local tongue from sea to shining sea.

But enough English is spoken to provide constant harassment along the three blocks of Ocean with the highest concentration of bars and restaurants. There is something about being constantly asked at any time of the day or night if one would like to dine tonight with a special half-price offer and a free cocktail that grates a little by the third day. 

Being a resort finding food to write home about can be a hit and miss affair, but there are several South Beach institutions that should not be missed. Joe’s Stone Crab is an immense eating factory - they say 300 covers but it must be more - taking up the entire first block of Washington Avenue.  They serve the usual vast American menu, but as the name suggests they specialise in local Stone Crabs (small body, big claws that grow back, apparently) which are delicate, sweet, unreasonably messy and in season from October to May, roughly. A mad queuing system (you can’t book - but there is a deli), surly but efficient service, gargantuan portions and surprisingly good value complete the picture.

A block up and over on Collins at 2nd The Big Pink presents another broadsheet sized menu where one dish is sufficient for two. The also deliver take out in a fleet of pink VW Beetles. Further up on Washington at 6th Grazie provides Italian with a difference and 660 at the Angler’s Hotel serves good quality modern American cuisine with a Mediterranean twist at prices that are not outrageous. Keep walking to the next block (from 7^th) and you will find, so long as you don’t blink and miss it, an unassuming Formica tabled eatery called Chihuahua that serves a straightforward Mexican menu with sensibly priced beer for a few bucks. At the next corner (8^th) Hot Tuna is an entirely different experience, described by one reviewer as “Nobu meets Coyote Ugly, in a good way”. Actually, it’s neither, but it is fun - so long as it isn’t empty, the staff, trimmed as well as the sushi, do perform on the bar, the cocktails are decent and the food isn’t bad if marginally overpriced.

The most famous South Beach restaurant is the 24/7 News Café on Ocean at 8^th where an outdoor table will buy you average food, good key lime pie, OK drinks at above average prices and exceptional perfect people watching at no extra cost. However the best and most authentic American food experience to be had on South Beach is at Jerry’s Famous Deli at Collins and Espanola. As good as you could get from a New York deli, just in South Beach - mind what you order from the 600+ item menu, there’s often enough for three in a single dish, it is fantastic value and they don’t ask for tips.

And although tipping is an accepted part of the American Way, in these parts the ‘gratuity’ is pre-added to the bill generally at the insane rate of 18% and otherwise relentlessly touted for with helpful charts to calculate this sum. When the card slip arrives one is invited to provide an ‘additional tip’.  It gets tiresome and rather defeats the object of rewarding service. There is, however, good service and a friendly reception to be had as long as you take the trouble to talk to the people who are serving - and it provides the opportunity to speculate on just how much plastic surgery they have undergone.

South Beach is about as ‘live for today’ as it gets (unless you are a property investor) but there is at least one oasis of culture to be found on Washington at 10th. The Wolfsonian FIU is set in a former warehouse and hosts a truly top class collection of design artefacts from the 20^th century. Fittingly the Wolfsonian focuses on American streamlined design. There is a cohesion to the exhibition that tells the story of graphic, industrial and product design and its importance to the self image of the USA. Otherwise the Wolfsonian would be merely a ‘museum of old stuff’. Other design museums take note.

South Beach isn’t really a shopping destination. The traffic-free open air mall on Lincoln Road offers a reasonable spread of corporate retail and tourist tat. Lincoln, though highlighted in the tourist guides is hardly the best shopping in Florida. In fact it isn’t even the best shopping in South Beach. Collins Avenue from 5^th to 10^th has better stores. 

Getting around South Beach itself is pretty easy. A walk from Lincoln Road to South Point Park would take around 45 minutes. It is certainly not a place where a car is necessary. In fact a car in South Beach just gets in the way - parking is limited, enforcement is active and garage space is breathtakingly expensive. Necessity, on the other hand, is not something on the minds of the young and affluent who pose in their convertibles, SUVs and Hummers along Collins and Ocean throughout the weekend. For the more rational there is a circular local bus service that will get you to most parts of South Beach every 10 minutes or so from early in the morning till sometime after midnight all for 25c an air-conditioned ride. There is also a massive, comprehensive, complex and, some say, not terribly reliable public transport infrastructure into the city and off to other local destinations.

One thing it is worth bearing in mind is that mainland Miami is vast. It really isn’t a question of strolling through its various districts and getting a feel for the place the way a walk from Central Park to The Battery delivers a cross section of New York life. Seeing Miami takes planning and a certain amount of local advice. In some cases it is worth asking if it is even worth the effort. ‘Attractions’ like Coconut Grove/Coco Walk, Bayside and Calle Ocho at the centre of Little Havana have very little to distinguish themselves.

Various city tours, of which there are many doing much the same thing, attempt to cover these destinations and more with limited success.  Among the most popular are the cruises around Biscayne Bay that offer water born sight seeing but of which the main purpose is organised gawping at homes of the rich and famous. The largely man made islands between Miami and the barrier Miami Beach provide waterfront residences for movie and music glitterati. All very nice is you have a few tens of millions to spare but all a little odd. Spending that sort of money on a house and it would be nice to think that you could actually use the garden without hoards of hoi polloi sailing by with their digital zooms. As it is those who really live in Biscayne Bay, rather than just ‘having a place’, have taken the trouble to screen themselves off from the tour boats. 

For the rich and famous Miami presents few dilemmas - it’s a place few of us would not want to drop in for a while and then skip off again. But like all resorts some people regardless of wealth arrive, get stuck and never leave.