Many American cities have encountered increasing problems along with their growth, and urban poverty is one of the major issues that is a problem in itself while contributing to a wide variety of other social ills. We speak of a cycle of poverty to show how poverty becomes self-perpetuating from one generation to the next, with poor areas in our cities unable to develop the necessary tax base to pay for better schools to education the next generation so it will not have to live in poverty as well. Miami developed in this century into a major city, increasingly cosmopolitan with an influx of Cuban immigrants since the Cuban Revolution in 1959. At one time, the CIA had an operations headquarters in Miami seen by many as a state within a city because it was over, above, and outside the laws of the United States as well as of the international community. The headquarters had a permanent staff in excess of 300 Americans directed a few thousand Cuban agents in different actions, with a budget of more than $50 million a year (Blum 210). The city has a mixed racial makeup with a large black and Latin population. The city has experienced the basic urban problems facing other major American cities, from increased crime to overcrowding, from racial tensions to deteriorating urban services and a reduced tax base. The problems facing Miami mirror those facing other American cities.
Throughout our history, there has been a major population shift as more and more people have moved from rural to urban regions, with an accompanying change in lifestyle, economic pursuits, and social structure. In the seventeenth century, less than two percent of the world's population lived in cities, while today the figure stands at 39 percent. While this has been a worldwide trend, some nations are at a later stage of urban development than others. Mexico is less developed than Japan, for instance, while both have experienced considerable urban populati...