Lincoln Road, under your feet, is a pedestrian mall that reinvented itself so many times it has become a kind of urban case study. Developer Carl Fisher built it as a commercial street in the 1910s, aiming to create a proper downtown for his new Miami Beach. In the 1950s architect Morris Lapidus — who would go on to design the Fontainebleau Hotel — transformed it into one of America's first outdoor pedestrian malls, removing cars and adding bold modernist pavilions, fountains, and shade structures.
For decades it thrived as a luxury shopping street. Then it declined. Then the arts community moved in, galleries and restaurants filling the gaps left by retail.
Now it's a hybrid: expensive restaurants spilling onto wide sidewalks, farmers markets on Sunday, people-watching of the highest international caliber. The outdoor furniture Lapidus designed is still there if you look. Lincoln Road taught American city planners that pedestrian streets can work, provided you give people enough reason to linger.