Free «Windshield Survey: City of Miami Florida» Essay Sample

Geographical Description

Miami and its suburbs are situated on a plain between Biscayne Bay to the east and Florida Everglades to the west. The elevation of the area is approximately 40ft and around 6ft in the neighborhood areas, particularly the areas near the coastline. The main part of Miami city is situated on the shores of the Bay of Biscayne, which comprises of several natural and artificial barrier islands. The Miami Beach and South Beach are located on the largest part of these islands. Miami is divided into several distinct parts (Miamigov.com, 2015).

Downtown Miami is the central part of the city that is in the eastern region. This is a large and influential central business district, and it includes Brickell, the Port of Miami, Watson Island and Virginia Key. The southern part of the city comprises of Coral way, which is a historical and residential area, that links Downtown and Coral Gables. Many old homes and tree-lined streets are found in this area. Coconut Grove that is also located in this area is situated near the Miami's City Hall in Dinner Key. The western part of the city comprises of Little Havana, Flagami and West Flagler, and it is home to majority of migrants, predominantly from Central America and Cuba. The Northern part of the City includes Midtown, a region with racial diversity. Wynwood and Edgewater borders with Midtown and contains multi-story residential buildings. The North is home to most African-American and Caribbean origin migrants (Miamigov.com, 2015).

Miami is an important business, financial, industrial and tourist center and has a robust international business community. In 2010, the city was ranked 20^th internationally on the basis of Gross Metropolitan Product and 11^th in the country, with a Gross Metropolitan Product of $ 257 billion. A number of multinational companies have their headquarters there. These companies include Holland and Knight, Carnival Cruise Lines, U.S. Century Bank and Norwegian Cruise Lines (Miamigov.com, 2015).

The city has a building department that enforces codes and regulations legislated by Florida State and Dade County to administrate building, upkeep and modify existing buildings and structures within the city for the safety of residents and property. The department evaluates applications and grants construction permits for new buildings, structures and maintenance and alteration of old buildings (Miamigov.com, 2015).

Health Resources

The City of Miami has a variety of health care systems. For pediatric care, the city has Miami Children Hospital, which is the single Florida's accredited specialty healthcare facility entirely for children. The hospital is graded among the top in the country. Other hospitals in Miami include University of Miami Health System’s Network that comprises of the highly ranked Sylvester Cancer Center, Bascom Palmer Eye Institute and the University of Miami Hospital, which has a capacity of 560 beds. This is an all-private room hospital. Baptist Health South Florida is the largest non-profit healthcare organization in the region. It manages seven health care facilities in the larger Miami. Furthermore, Miami's Baptist International Center is among the biggest hospital-based transnational programs in the US with a trained polyglot staff (VAJDA, 2015).

Other outstanding health care centers include Mercy Hospital, which has a 473-bed facility associated with over 700 physicians from 27 medical specializations. Mount Sinai Medical Center is a charitable, private medical center and is one of the country’s best hospitals in geriatrics and neurology. Jackson Memorial Hospital is a level 1 adult hospital and pediatric trauma clinic. Further, there are many self-help and support groups that deal with a wide range of psychologically related issues such as depression, addiction, drug and alcohol abuse, anger management, anti-social personality, borderline personality, bipolar disorder, teenage problems and learning disabilities. There are also faith-based organizations that offer services such as rehabilitation (VAJDA, 2015).

Miami- Dade Transit is the major public transport authority of the City. The transport system is the largest in Florida State and 14^th largest in the nation.

 It operates Metromover, Metrobus and Metrorail that offer low-cost alternative to rental cars and taxis. Typically, Metrorail and Metrobus trips cost two dollars and payment is usually made through prepaid rechargeable easy cards. While other modes of transport accept different forms of payments, trains accept prepaid cards only. Airport Flyer operated by MDT offers a cheap transport connection between Miami Beach and Miami International Airport (Miamigov.com, 2015).

Citizen Safety and Protective Services

Miami has a fire rescue department that provides protection against fire and urgent health services for the city and Florida State. The fire rescue department furnishes all its equipment with dual way radios, and also uses fog nozzles. This department sponsors other search and rescue task forces including USAR Task Force 2, in Florida State. The over 200 members of the task force are deployed to aid in major catastrophes such as earthquakes and Hurricanes. The Miami Police Department is the main police department in Miami City. The department has collaborative accords with other bordering areas of police departments. The police can be differentiated from their colleagues from the neighboring areas by their white-blue patrolling cars and blue uniform. The police department has initiated community policing programs that are geared towards enhancing homeland security. Patrolling is distributed across the North, Central, and South Districts (Miamigov.com, 2015).

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The City is home to a number of organizations that offer Shelters systems, which promote empowerment of victims of abuse. The organizations offer shelter services to the victims. These include shelters for victims of domestic violence and gender-based violence. Some shelters offer humanitarian services to homeless men, women, and children. Other shelters also provide services such as alcohol and drug abuse rehabilitation (Welfareinfo.org, 2015). Some of these shelters include Miami Rescue Mission, Camillus House, which provides a full scale of services to the poor and homeless people, and the City of Miami Homeless Outreach program that offers shelter services to homeless and destitute people that must be located strictly within the City at the time of making their request for help (VAJDA, 2015).

Services Provided by Senior Citizens Senior Centers, Meals on Wheels, Transportation, Day Care, Long Term Care

The city has over 120 park locations that offer high level recreational services to the residents and visitors. Recreational services include swimming, soccer, bike riding, tennis and chess. Outstanding parks include Shenandoah Park, William Park, Little Soccer Haiti Park, Coral Gate Park and Grape Land Water Park the sole water park within the boundaries of the City of Miami, providing four swimming pools, including two slide pools, one for kids, one for grown up children and adults, a lazy river and a recreational pool. People of all ages visit this park particularly in the summer season. The parks also provide picnic areas when the weather is beautiful (Miamigov.com, 2015).

Community Welfare Services Beyond City/State Aid as Provisions for Emergency Food, Shelter, and Clothing

There are various government welfare programs that are available to citizens of Miami City. These programs are funded either by the state government or federal government. They include Florida Assistance Program, which helps low-earning individuals and families to obtain proper nutrition diet. The food aid is meant to be a supplement to other household income and should be spent only on food. The aid should not be spent on items such as cleaning supplies, clothes and alcohol. The beneficiaries buy food through electronic benefit transfer card. The card is used at retail stores that are accredited by the US Department of Agriculture. The food aid is allocated on the basis of the size of the family and financial situation (Welfareinfo.org, 2015).

Florida Head Start Program is an initiative by the federal government that is aimed at stimulating school preparedness of kids from low earning families and who must be of the age five or below. The programs are intended to improve the children’s cognitive, emotional and social growth. Florida KidCare is another state’s program that provides affordable, health insurance for uninsured children in Florida (Welfareinfo.org, 2015).

Medicaid is a partnership program between the Federal government and the State. The program offers health coverage for particular low earning categories of people in Florida State. It aims at improving the health of those groups of persons that cannot manage to pay for personal or their children‘s health care. To benefit from this program, an individual must be a resident of Florida State, a national/citizen of U.S, permanent resident, or a legal foreigner, in need of medical care or insurance and whose financial circumstances would be described as low income. One must also be either an expecting woman, a custodian (parent or relative) of a reliant person below the age of nineteen, be disabled, or have a disabled member of the family under one's household, or be aged 65 or above (Welfareinfo.org, 2015).