Time is on Miami's side
Have you ever thought of Miami as a strategic business hub between the Western and Eastern Americas? Maybe it is time to adjust your mental map of Miami's location in this hemisphere.
We are all accustomed to thinking of Miami as a bridge between North and South. We have the North-South Center in Coral Gables to prove it. For an East-West Center, you have to go to the University of Hawaii. It all seems to be a matter of common sense.
Ask people to draw a map of the Western Hemisphere without any help or reference materials, and the large majority will produce a drawing in which North America is pretty much straight above South America. That is to say: straight to the north. It is a reflection of their "mental map," with its biases and inaccuracies.
Look at a decent map - or, better yet, a globe - and you'll find that South America is to the east of us and most of North America is to the west of us. Put differently, Miami is positioned on the East coast of the United States, but it is also the most western city of South America.
With a longitudinal position of 80.16 degrees west, there are only two cities in South America that come close, both in Ecuador: Guayaquil at 79.54 degrees west, and Quito at 78.30 degrees west.
The position of Miami between East and West has been crucial to its development. This is illustrated through a comparison with Los Angeles.
The latter city is, with Miami, one of the southernmost cities of the United States, but it is positioned in the extreme West.
Los Angeles is strongly influenced by its location close to Mexico, straight to the south. In contrast, Miami's relatively meager ties with Mexico are in large part explained by the fact that Mexico is too far to the west - even if Miami and a large chunk of Mexico have the same latitude.
Conversely, consider the enormous distance from Los Angeles to places such as Recife and Sao Paulo in Brazil or Buenos Aires - from west to east.
This explains, of course, the centrality of Miami, not Los Angeles, in airline traffic in the South American region.
And that is not all. In one respect, longitudinal position is strategically more significant than latitudinal position: time. Miami is in the same time zone as Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru; it is one hour behind Venezuela, western Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Chile; and it is two hours behind eastern Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina.
Los Angeles, on the other hand, is no less than five hours behind large parts of South America.
By 11 a.m. in California, offices already close down in major South American cities such as Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires. Miami has a three-hour advantage over Los Angeles and a one-hour advantage over Houston or New Orleans - all competing cities.
Even just one hour can make the difference between same-day and next-day communications. They are old adages that time is money and that good timing is everything.
And in this age of globalization, the premium on speed and time continues to appreciate as never before.
So, Miami is indeed exceptionally endowed in terms of its relative location. Is it still accurate to think of our city as a bridge between North and South America? Yes, it is. But it is only half of the story.
Jan Nijman is professor Geography and Regional Studies, School of International Studies, University of Miami.