The Lincoln Road Mall, like much of Miami Beach, gives the impression of a fading smile. A once beautiful set of pearly whites marred by lack of care and upkeep.

Time has taken its toll. Some of the teeth are pristine and white. Others dark and rotting. Some missing completely. Its looks like a mouth full of broken teeth.

Vacant shops and hotels pepper the high street, gathering dust. Units, once homes to easily recognisable names of retail, advertise cheap spaces for rent. Next, to them boutique shops offering marque makes and the type of chique only serious money can buy; their exclusive clientele insulated from the heat and grinding poverty in their bubble tea world as much by money as a practiced callous indifference.

So much so that even the tasing one homeless man in the middle of the street, in the middle of the day doesn’t so much as cause a stir.

On every street, huge spaces are given over to selling tatt to tourists. They all carry identical ranges of stock selling everything from skimpy swimsuits to mummified crocodile heads. Yes, real reptilian heads, in every size being sold as souvenirs alongside ashtrays and fake designer clothes. The shops all lurid bright colours reminiscent of the 80’s blare out loud Latin pop music with a thumping baseline and Spanish rap.

Here where the high street runs into the sand and the pale blue sea the poor beg outside multi-million-dollar apartments the dysfunctional American dream is played out in all its glory and pitilessness.

Played out here at a glacial pace under tropical sun of the American Riviera is the great American recession of the last 20 years.

South Beach, the very model for the Darwinian struggle that is the very best and worst of capitalism. A fight for survival played out between colliding cultures full of energy and dynamism.

And just wonderful.