Looking at the towers going up fronting the Miami River throughout Downtown Miami, it’s hard to believe that decades ago, this wasn’t prime property.
The reality is that the pristine waters of the Miami River and off the coast of the city didn’t use to be as clean as they are now. Miami was the last metropolitan city in the United States to directly dump its sewage into the river and ocean. Like Chicago, whose rivers and canals also had a dirty reputation, Miami cleaned up and dredged its river in the last few decades.