South Beach (a.k.a. SoBe) in Miami Beach, Florida, wasn’t always a playground for the rich and famous. One hundred years ago the area’s original developers envisioned a mid-sized ocean front city of modest single family homes.

Today, not so much.

The 1920s real estate bubble attracted millionaires and speculators.  The 1930s brought an architectural Art Deco revolution, a development trend that gives the city it’s character and sense of place today.

But it was TV that really put South Beach on the map: The Jackie Gleason Show in the 1960s, later Crockett and Tubbs solving crimes in Miami Vice.

Today, South Beach is one of the U.S.’s most international destinations:  English is the first language of only 33% of the residents.

In 2009 Natalie O’Neill of the Miami New Times commented: “Until the 1980s, Miami Beach was a peculiar mix of criminals, Cubans, and little old ladies. Then the beautiful people moved in.”

There are more pictures from Miami Beach here.

With oil bearing down on the remarkable white sand beaches of the Florida Panhandle, we hopped a Southwest flight to the newly opened Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport in Panama City Beach.

Two and a half hours after we left BWI, we pulled in to Seaside, Florida, a place many recognize as the location where The Truman Show was filmed.  In fact, Seaside is famous for another reason:  It is considered one of the best examples of New Urbanism anywhere in the world.  Time called it “the most astounding design achievement of its era and, one might hope, the most influential.”

An unspeakable tragedy is unfolding in slow-motion along the Gulf Coast, and if black tar washes up on Northwest Florida’s pristine white sand beaches, we will have done damage to a very special place.

There are more pictures of Seaside and Northwest Florida here.