Golf Cart Cities

There was a recent story in the Financial Times about Miami’s crypto-fueled ascent to the status of “most important city in America.” That title is in quotes for a reason; the author is as skeptical as anyone, but the piece certainly makes the case that Miami is a capital of the present zeitgeist. It’s a great read all around, but one of the images I found most striking was a detail the author observes on his way to a meeting with a local realtor:

“On a Thursday morning in December, I take a ferry to Fisher Island to meet real estate agent Jill Eber, one of the two Jills of the Jills Zeder Group. She picks me up in her turquoise golf cart, the preferred method of transportation on this 216-acre island of golf courses, restaurants, apartment buildings, a gym and a school, a community indistinguishable from an all-inclusive resort. According to Bloomberg, it was the wealthiest zip code in America last year, with an average income of $2.2 million.”

Fisher Island only has a few hundred residents, and its land area is only a quarter of a square mile. Any point on the island is a reasonable walking distance from any other, so golf carts make a lot of sense. But the preference for golf cart transportation within one of the world’s richest enclaves—and more importantly, the preference for the kind of place where golf carts make more sense than cars—calls attention to our complicated relationship with cars elsewhere. We are happy to ditch them when we’re lucky enough to find ourselves somewhere we can walk or bike or golf-cart instead.