{"id":16230,"date":"2025-10-25T13:23:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T13:23:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/16230\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T13:23:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T13:23:06","slug":"miamis-outgoing-mayor-warns-about-what-he-sees-happening-in-new-york-and-the-2-cities-different-approaches-to-next-summers-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/16230\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami’s outgoing mayor warns about what he sees happening in New York and the 2 cities’ different approaches to next summer’s World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Francis Suarez is proud that an adopted Miamian, FIFA chief Gianni Infantino<\/a>, will be speaking at the upcoming America Business Forum<\/a>\u2014as will Infantino\u2019s new chum<\/a>, President Donald Trump<\/a>. Suarez, who briefly ran a Republican presidential campaign<\/a> in 2023, hailed Trump in comments to Fortune, calling the president \u201cone of the most consequential political and business leaders of our time,\u201d adding that his perspective on leadership, global business, and America\u2019s role in the world \u201cwill be a defining part of this year\u2019s Forum. We are honored to welcome him to Miami.\u201d Suarez also told Fortune that he\u2019s proud Miami is hosting the second-most World Cup games next summer, including the bronze medal game.<\/p>\n

After nearly eight years in office, the outgoing mayor is proud of realizing his ambitions to make Miami the \u201ccapital of capital,\u201d arguing in an interview with Fortune that it\u2019s \u201cgraduated from the capital of Latin America to a truly great global city.\u201d And Suarez has a lot of words for the likely next mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, including Mamdani\u2019s campaign to force FIFA to change its ticket pricing strategy. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is sort of government overreach, right?\u201d Suarez said. While offering a significant caveat, noting he is not overly familiar with the specifics of Mamdani\u2019s campaign, which accuses FIFA of \u201cprice gouging\u201d<\/a> and urges it to set aside 15% of tickets at discounted rates for working-class New Yorkers, Suarez pivoted to discussion of housing policy. \u201cYou see this in the context of rent controls or price controls,\u201d he said, the first of many broadsides he aimed at what he sees happening in New York City politics. \u201cThey seem good in the short run, like it makes you feel good, right? Like, hey, we\u2019re going to control prices.\u201d<\/p>\n

For his part, Mamdani has framed<\/a> the issue as one area where government should try to intervene. \u201cAre any working-class New Yorkers actually going to be able to watch any of the matches?\u201d he has asked publicly<\/a>, accusing FIFA of \u201cpricing working people out of the game that they love\u201d and urging other cities to join his battle against what he described as unchecked greed, as seen in the title of his campaign, \u201cGame over Greed<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u200bMamdani claims FIFA\u2019s dynamic pricing model amounts to \u201cprice gouging\u201d as tickets for the 2026 FIFA World Cup\u2014hosted across 16 cities, with eight matches and the final at MetLife<\/a> Stadium\u2014will range from $60 up to $6,730, with prices adjusting to demand. In his petition, Mamdani called for caps on resale prices similar to regulations recently adopted in fellow host country Mexico, situating the fight within a broader movement to protect working people from rising costs.<\/p>\n

\u200bMamdani\u2019s campaign did not respond to requests for comment from Fortune. But JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon sat down with Fortune<\/a> earlier in October at the Most Powerful Women summit in Washington DC<\/a>, and offered some thoughts on how the business class is regarding Mamdani, weeks out of the mayoral election. Dimon said that if Mamdani is elected, he will offer his help. Calling Mamdani\u2019s Democratic Socialist movement \u201cliterally more Marxist than socialist,\u201d Dimon alluded to reports of conversations between the two men and Mamdani\u2019s widely reported charm offensive with New York\u2019s business class. Mamdani is \u201ctalking to a lot of people, he\u2019s convinced a lot of people [that] he\u2019s going to change [and] he wants to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Open for business<\/p>\n

As for Suarez, the popular<\/a> two-term Republican mayor has long insisted on government being open for business and small in scope. \u201cWhen government intervenes,\u201d Suarez told Fortune, \u201coftentimes the result is catastrophe, it\u2019s chaos.\u201d He said he sees Miami, on the other hand, as \u201ca city where a rising tide lifts all boats,\u201d noting its exceptionally low unemployment (2.9% as of August<\/a>) and high median wage growth (Asana found<\/a> it was the highest in the nation from 2020 to 2023, outpacing inflation).<\/p>\n

Suarez told Fortune he thinks he\u2019s been a successful mayor because of deliberate policy choices that focused government on narrow quality-of-life issues, a business-friendly attitude, and striking while the iron was hot. He reminded Fortune that it all started with a viral tweet back in December 2020<\/a>, when he took the idea of transforming South Beach into Silicon Valley seriously. It was far behind his goal coming in, when he merely wanted to help Miami transition away from an industrial economy. That tweet helped him realize, he said, \u201cthat there was an inflection point that would allow us to hyperscale.\u201d He said he was an opportunity to squeeze 30 years\u2019 worth of growth into just three or four, and that he\u2019d be proud to be remembered as a social-media mayor.<\/p>\n

Suarez said he was wary of Mamdani. \u201cMy parents came from a country [in Cuba] where a young, charismatic leader made the same promises. And he did create equality: He created equality of misery, suffering, poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Suarez and Mamdani have some things in common, especially their telegenic, social-media savvy rises to fame, albeit from opposing political poles. When this dynamic is pointed out, especially the central role of social media in their campaigning, Suarez says he \u201cthinks that\u2019s true,\u201d while quickly clarifying that \u201canybody who\u2019s young, presumably, is going to be good on social media, right?\u201d Suarez would rather talk about what he sees Mamdani ultimately selling to likely voters: \u201cAre you selling a future that\u2019s going to make things better, or are you selling a road to perdition? And I think he\u2019s selling a road to perdition, whether he\u2019s doing it intentionally or not, whether he actually believes that he can make things better. I have no idea. I don\u2019t know him personally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Suarez is eager to reel off the top names he\u2019s recruited to Miami, whether it\u2019s billionaires, celebrities, or major employers. He notes that besides Infantino, the city has attracted Amazon<\/a> founder Jeff Bezos<\/a>, Hall of Fame quarterback Tom Brady<\/a>, soccer superstar Lionel Messi<\/a>, and hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin<\/a>. \u201cThese are people that could live anywhere in the world and have chosen to live in Miami.\u201d Suarez notes that he\u2019s an anomaly as the first native-born Miami mayor, and Miami is known for being made up of adopted Miamians.<\/p>\n

The mayor also listed Miami\u2019s leading lights in business, with firms such as BlackRock<\/a>, Blackstone<\/a>, and Citadel all opening local offices or even headquarters locally. \u201cWe\u2019ve attracted companies that manage close to $13 trillion in assets,\u201d he said, and it\u2019s adding notable conferences along with attractions like Formula One<\/a> and the new Inter Miami soccer stadium<\/a>. This has all put stress on Miami\u2019s infrastructure, Suarez acknowledged, saying Miami is in some ways a victim of its goal to become \u201cWall Street South<\/a>.\u201d He said there\u2019s \u201cdefinitely a gentrification happening in Miami,\u201d and it has gotten expensive.<\/p>\n

In fact, UBS Global Wealth Management\u2019s annual Real Estate Bubble Index<\/a>, published in late September, put Miami at the very top spot of its global \u201cbubble risk index,\u201d backing Suarez\u2019s argument that it is truly a global city after explosive growth under his tenure. The nearest American cities to Miami on UBS\u2019 list were Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York, respectively. The Swiss bank noted that Miami\u2019s bubble risk had actually decreased since 2024 and over the past five years, Miami and the similarly sunny and wealthy Dubai have led the pack, averaging real price growth of roughly 50%. <\/p>\n

Among all the bubbly real-estate markets, UBS found Miami posting the strongest inflation-adjusted housing appreciation over the past 15 years. Affordability is still near record lows, but housing inventory has rebounded to near pre-pandemic levels as of 2025. \u201cMiami\u2019s coastal appeal and favorable tax environment continue to attract newcomers from the U.S. West and Northeast,\u201d the report noted, with international demand remaining robust, particularly from Latin America.<\/p>\n

Suarez blames too many New Yorkers moving in for the inflated real-estate prices. \u201cWhen people come in, it does put stress on our price affordability. We used to be a lot more affordable than New York, until all the New Yorkers came and now we\u2019re close in price.\u201d He said he sees this continuing under the likely mayorship of Mamdani. \u201cThe sense that I have \u2026 as interest rates go down, plus people fleeing New York, there will be another wave. You feel it, you sense it, it\u2019s going to have a 20%, 30% impact on values.\u201d<\/p>\n

Suburban New York realtors say they are seeing a \u201cMamdani effect<\/a>\u201d of more moderate and conservative New Yorkers fleeing ahead of Mamdani\u2019s election, with home sales in contract spiking 15% year-over-year per one local firm. Within the city, Alexander Carter, a licensed real-estate salesperson with the Corcoran Group, previously told\u00a0Fortune\u00a0that she had \u201cnever seen this type of reaction to a mayor,\u201d having worked in real estate for three or four different tenures. \u201cIt\u2019s been pretty drastic. After he won the primary we had a companywide call on implications for business because of the \u2018rent freezes.\u2019\u201d She said the Mamdani effect comes down to one thing: \u201cPeople are afraid it will be bad for business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Suarez insists that he doesn\u2019t want Miami to succeed while New York is failing. \u201cI think you want every great American city to succeed.\u201d New York City, by the way, is the only metro area that will host more World Cup games than Miami\u2014all of them across the river, in nearby New Jersey. Although, President Trump has recently hinted that he\u2019ll seek to strip World Cup games<\/a> from cities that he doesn\u2019t like. Miami surely wouldn\u2019t be one of those.\n<\/p>\n