Coral Gables Magazine April 2026

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Editor’s Note

All That is Old is New Again

One of the reasons we enjoy producing our annual look at innovation in the Gables is the irony of it. The simple fact is that Coral Gables is the most historic city in Miami-Dade County, and one of the most historic in the state. It is a city that relishes its century-old roots, which it strives to preserve via its Mediterranean revival architecture as well as in its elegant lifestyle, clearly a throwback to a less frenetic world.

At the same time, Coral Gables prides itself on being a center for innovation, a city earnestly looking to accommodate the future – in terms of both opportunities and challenges. Our city is routinely lauded for being an award-winning “Smart City,” largely due to an IT infrastructure that is the brainchild of Raimundo Rudolfo, the city’s director of innovation and technology, and its chief innovation officer. Under Rudolfo’s leadership, the city is in the final phase of wiring itself for 5G high-speed communications, which will allow for everything from better business and civic (think police and fire) connectivity to a network of sensors that can monitor – and improve – human and vehicular traffic.

But that is just the surface of the Gables’ spirit of innovation, which permeates the city. While much of it is now AI-driven [like the rest of the country], there are plenty of solutions

for the future which come simply from creative thinking. Sometimes it’s a kind of Back to the Future re-use of the past, like the city’s trolley system or its repurposing of historic properties. Other times its good old-fashioned problem solving with an open mind – like the city’s plan to invest in a smokeless BioChar waste disposal system, which will recycle green matter into fertilizer and asphalt for a lower price that trucking it to a dump. On the purely AI-driven front, we are lucky to have the University of Miami located here; their use of virtual reality for educational purposes is so exceptional that researchers from Disney and Meta have come by to see what they can learn from us.

In the end, says innovation director Rudolfo, it’s all about making daily life better for the residents of, and visitors to, the City Beautiful. Making it easier for them to interact with the city government, making it easier for them travel within the city, keeping the city streets safer, providing better health care solutions, and maintaining a healthy and natural environment.

That is the goal of our innovative city – to embrace the future while protecting the past. While some cities eviscerate their history in favor of modernity, and others are so caught up in their past they cannot move forward, the Gables’ unique ability to synthesize yesterday and tomorrow exemplifies the best in civic innovation.

PS – While the future may be AI-driven, that world is not yet perfected. We asked an AI program to create an image of Coral Gables with a robot getting into a driverless car. We even submitted photos. The cover is the best it could do. Hmmm…. looks like we still need the human touch.

JP FABER
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
CORAL GABLES MAGAZINE