Florida's Brazilian Boom: Cultural and Economic Factors

 Trump will go to South America for the first time in March, and he will stop in Brazil. Florida's biggest trade partner in South America is Brazil. But Brazilians are also buying expensive homes on the beach and condominiums in downtown Miami. They are also investing in everything from real estate to Burger King and shopping a lot. One tour provider says it's like a "swarm of grasshoppers" has come to South Florida and is eating up deals from Dadeland to Sawgrass Mills. Claudia Menezes of Pegasus Transportation, which runs a fleet of buses for both regular tours and the shopping trips that Brazilians love, said, "The trend now is everyone comes to shop, shop, shop." "They're buying up everything from $10 creams at Victoria's Secret to Luis Vuitton and Prada."

Menezes says that when Pegasus buses take Brazilians back to the airport for their trips home, they have to add extra trailers behind to carry all the shopping bags

To keep people from Brazil going to the United States, American Airlines now has 52 flights a week from Miami International Airport to Brazil. "Brazil is breaking all kinds of records," the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau's senior vice president of marketing said. "It has been our rock-star market." South Florida is expecting to have thrown open its doors to more than 500,000 Brazilian tourists who spent more than $1 billion in 2010. Canada would no longer be the top country for foreign visitors; Brazil would take over. During the oil boom, Venezuelans were known for their "dame-dos" (give me two) ways. Latin Americans have always loved shopping in South Florida. Brazil's people are different because there are a lot more of them and they spend a lot of money. The tourism office has put out shopping guides, maps, and other materials in Portuguese for people from Brazil. Even though there are no direct flights from Brazil to Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport, the number of Brazilian tourists coming to Broward County has grown by 50% in the last year, to 300,000. In the world, Brazil is now Broward's second most important market, after Canada. A spokesperson for the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau, Francine Mason, said, "They may come in through Miami, but they go to Sawgrass Mills." They also visit family and friends. Most of the Brazilians who live in Florida live in Broward County, mostly in the Pompano Beach and Lighthouse Point area.

According to the Brazilian Consulate in Miami

There are between 250,000 and 300,000 Brazilians living in Florida. Most of them live in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, as well as Orlando.What's causing the rush in Brazil?

Brazil's economy is growing quickly and will likely be the fifth biggest in the world by 2016. It is the lowest it has ever been. And last but not least, the real, Brazil's currency, is very strong against the dollar. This means that Brazilians can afford to go to Florida and go on shopping sprees. The cost of a week in South Florida is often less for someone from Sao Paulo than a trip in Northeast Brazil. As of right now, Claudia Bacelar, a Brazilian real estate agent in Coral Gables, Fla., said, "Real estate is very expensive in Brazil and many people can't afford it."

Edgardo Defortuna, president and CEO of Fortune International, says that in Belo Horizonte, the capital city of a state in the southeast of Brazil, an apartment that is the same size as a three-bedroom unit at Jade Ocean in Sunny Isles Beach and sells for $1.6 million might cost $2.5 million. Another reason there are so many Brazilian tourists: they like it here. "Florida has always been a favorite -- the warm tropical weather and the beaches with the benefit of the shopping and now, of course, it's so much more affordable," said Bacelar. "When Brazilians come here and I see how they shop, I'm in shock." Making history last year, Madelyn Bello Calvar, head of sponsorship and marketing at Dolphin Mall near Miami International Airport, said that Brazilians are the top international tourists there, beating out Venezuelans for the first time. She also said that they spend about three times as much as local buyers do. Marcos Freire, who is the assistant general manager at Sawgrass Mills, has been happy to see shopping groups speaking Portuguese and buses full of Brazilian tourists wearing similar T-shirts pull in. According to mall surveys, the most common foreign shoppers are from Brazil, then Colombia, and finally Canada. freire says, "The Brazilians are way ahead." "They know their way around American stores," Freire, who is from Rio de Janeiro, said. "They've done their homework and they know where they're going."

Sociologists, economists, and urbanists have been interested in cities and areas for a long time

From Alfred Marshall to Robert Park and Jane Jacobs, cities have been seen as places where people from all walks of life can meet and interact with each other and where new ideas and talent can grow. But until recently, social scientists who study regional growth and development mostly looked at the role of businesses in cities, especially how they choose where to locate and how much they stick together in groups called agglomerations or clusters. This short article is a summary of recent changes in how we think about cities and communities. It does this especially in light of the themes I explore in my new book, The Rise of the Creative Class, which is about how diversity and creativity are key to innovation and growth at the regional and national levels. This area of research also shows that our ideas need to be refocused and expanded so that we can think about where people choose to live instead of businesses when looking at where regional and national economies grow. This article wants to start a conversation and argument about how important cities and regions are in creative capitalism in the 21st century.