{"id":20,"date":"2015-10-09T01:33:34","date_gmt":"2015-10-09T01:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/?p=20"},"modified":"2015-11-14T13:07:29","modified_gmt":"2015-11-14T18:07:29","slug":"thoughts-from-wynwood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/09\/thoughts-from-wynwood\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts from Wynwood"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2000, I was wandering Miami with vague notions of visiting some place the guidebook called the \u201cFashion District.\u201d I wasn\u2019t too keen on fashion, but thought, \u201cwhat the heck, it\u2019s Miami, right?\u201d It must be some place where I could watch super-rich people spend their money.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nope. What I found was a dead neighborhood of weird old clothing shops devoid of shoppers. It was the kind of neighborhood a suburban kid like me stayed out of.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So how is it I find myself back there 15 years later obsessively posting picture after picture to my Instagram feed?<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"instagram-media\" style=\"background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 658px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);\" data-instgrm-version=\"5\">\n<div style=\"padding: 8px;\">\n<div style=\"background: #F8F8F8; line-height: 0; margin-top: 40px; padding: 44.0740740741% 0; text-align: center; width: 100%;\"><\/div>\n<p style=\"color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;\"><a style=\"color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;\" href=\"https:\/\/instagram.com\/p\/8Yboyut8wC\/\" target=\"_blank\">A photo posted by William Chinda (@willchinda)<\/a> on <time style=\"font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px;\" datetime=\"2015-10-03T16:13:56+00:00\">Oct 3, 2015 at 9:13am PDT<\/time><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/platform.instagram.com\/en_US\/embeds.js\" async=\"\" defer=\"defer\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The neighborhood is Wynwood, and in the intervening years the neighborhood completely turned itself around thanks to one thing: graffiti. The rough parts of any town have it, but none have embraced it and encouraged it quite to the level that Wynwood has. A few years ago, the same developer who helped revitalize South Beach and SoHo bought up much of the property and invited street artists from around the world to come and create. By creating a focal point and raising the bar for graffiti, it attracted other talented artists, who expanded the creativity beyond the <a href=\"http:\/\/thewynwoodwalls.com\/Wynwood-Walls-Artists\/\" target=\"_blank\">original development<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/32424117\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While the original Wynwood Walls are beautiful and a very fun place to take a selfie, the most interesting thing about Wynwood are the side streets. There, taking a walk is like being in an open-air art gallery where the curator has gone on vacation. On one wall, a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitewallssf.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/roas-finished-manatee\/\" target=\"_blank\">manatee sliced in half<\/a>. On another wall, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=nskUAWh54to\" target=\"_blank\">homosexual cakes<\/a>. Down the street from there, <a href=\"https:\/\/instagram.com\/p\/wYv-3wSZ4u\/\" target=\"_blank\">a tribute to victims of police brutality<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/DSC04549.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-24\" src=\"https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/DSC04549.jpg\" alt=\"DSC04549\" width=\"600\" height=\"399\" srcset=\"https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/DSC04549.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/DSC04549-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beautiful. Profane. Disgusting. Inspiring. Boring. There\u2019s no filter, just an expressive display coming at you from all directions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/miami0515-27.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-25\" src=\"https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/miami0515-27.jpg\" alt=\"miami0515-27\" width=\"600\" height=\"398\" srcset=\"https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/miami0515-27.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/miami0515-27-300x199.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Compare this to the ordered, uniform streets of suburbia. In suburban neighborhoods, you pay a Homeowner\u2019s Association a regular fee to provide community spaces, amenities\u2026 and also make sure that no one steps too far out of line. Neighbor decided to paint their house hot pink? Your HOA\u2019s effectiveness is measured by how fast they can force them to repaint it. Select a color from the approved list, please.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Both types of neighborhood have similar aims &#8211; create a pleasant environment where people want to live and (subsequently) increase value to the point where both the developer and owner can profit. One does it through control, the other does it through creativity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I know which kind of neighborhood I\u2019d rather live in.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"excerpt\">In 2000, I was wandering Miami with vague notions of visiting some place the guidebook called the \u201cFashion District.\u201d I wasn\u2019t too keen on fashion, but thought, \u201cwhat the heck, it\u2019s Miami, right?\u201d It must be some place where I could watch super-rich people spend their money. Nope. What I found was a dead neighborhood of weird old clothing shops &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/09\/thoughts-from-wynwood\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[9,8,7,6,5],"class_list":["post-20","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel","tag-art","tag-community","tag-creativity","tag-miami","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26,"href":"https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions\/26"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}