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Miami Beach, FL, might be known for its spring break scene and the celebrities who are snatching up multimillion-dollar mansions, but it hopes to soon join the ranks of the world’s “blue zones”: communities where people live much longer and healthier than the average.
“This is about changing the perception and the reality of what we are,” Miami Beach Vice Mayor Tanya Bhatt, who is spearheading the effort to turn around the party spot, exclusively tells Realtor.com®. “We’re never not going to have a robust nightlife. And that is a great thing to have. But we’re also about so much more than party ’til you drop.”
What is a ‘blue zone’?
Journalist Dan Buettner coined the term “blue zones” in 2004 for certain communities around the globe that he claims have unusually high life expectancies and a high number of centenarians.
While he admits genetics plays a key role in a person’s lifespan, Buettner also believes longevity is baked into certain communities because of their lifestyles.
The five blue zones are: Sardinia, Italy; Ikaria, Greece; Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica; Loma Linda, CA; and Okinawa, Japan.
In his bestselling book, “The Blue Zones: 9 Lessons for Living Longer,” Buettner identified nine traits these five communities have in common: natural movement, living with a purpose, downshifting from stress, eating mindfully, a plant-based diet, moderate alcohol consumption, a faith-based community, putting family first, and having a healthy social circle (“tribe”).
While it should be noted that the concept of blue zones has been challenged as being myth and not based on science, the idea remains wildly popular.
Buettner savvily created a business empire around the concept, with several books, speaking engagements, meal plans and branded foods, retreats, and merchandise. He’s even gone so far as to try to debunk the debunkers.
In 2020, Minneapolis-based Blue Zones LLC was acquired by Adventist Health, a private, non-profit Seventh-day Adventist-based healthcare company with $6 billion in revenue.
How will Miami Beach become a ‘blue zone’?
If you didn’t happen to be born in one of these long-living communities, don’t worry. Buettner believes that with enough effort and change, any community can drastically increase its longevity and wellness.
To that end, he created the “Blue Zones Community Project” that will work with communities to make them—hopefully, eventually—the next blue zone.
In 2023, Bhatt saw the Netflix docuseries “Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones” and was intrigued to learn that communities can hire the lifestyle company Buettner founded to help increase their wellness and longevity.
Impressed with what other communities—such as Ft. Worth, TX, and Hawaii—were able to accomplish after joining forces with the company, Bhatt secured $220,000 in funding for Miami Beach to do the same.
While she believes the city already has a lot of the benefits of the blue-zone lifestyle—including plenty of outdoor activities, walkability, and community—it could stand to improve.
In February, the 7-mile strip of sandbar known as Miami Beach, where the cozy population of 80,000 swells to 500,000 on weekends, will begin a six-month assessment process to figure out what it needs to do to become more like a blue zone.
Once the assessment period is up, Blue Zones LLC gives its recommendations for areas of improvement, and works with the city to bring them to fruition.
Bhatt says she is excited to learn the company’s suggestions for change, but has opinions on the area’s weak spots: a lack of micromobility, such as bike and roller blade lanes and shared bike and electric scooter systems, and a scarcity of community-based events for young adults in their 20s and 30s.
With the rise of remote work, Bhatt points out that the traditional place to meet like-minded people (a “tribe”)—the office—may not be an option for many.
If Miami Beach reaches certification—something that takes around five years—it would be one of the most well-known Blue Zone-certified communities.
“We have a global brand,” says Bhatt. “I mean, ‘MTV Spring Break’ was filmed here.”
What do communities have to do?
So far, Blue Zones LLC has consulted with 90 communities, 70 of which have received certification.
“Communities like Miami Beach want to take control about where they want to go,” Dan Buettner Jr., executive vice president and chief transformation officer for his father’s company, tells Realtor.com. “And where they want to go speaks to quality of life and wellness.”
A team of Blue Zones staff will work with no fewer than 300 Miami Beach community leaders to put together a plan over the next six months that will, hopefully, lead to positive systemic transformations.
Certification doesn’t mean Miami Beach would be the sixth blue zone; it would just indicate the city had made enough improvements to satisfy the company’s criteria.
Buettner says the Blue Zone-certified communities were able to do things like lower rates for smoking, obesity, and depression and increase their rankings on Gallup’s Life Evaluation Index.
He points out that the robust, elderly people in his father’s original study weren’t working out in gyms or studying diet books. Instead, the nine power principles they lived by were organic to their communities.
The point isn’t to get people to eat better or exercise more but to change the entire way a community operates. For example, a pedestrian path was added around a lake in the Blue Zones project community of Albert Lea, MN, to encourage walking.
“It’s not about making environments where people make the healthy choice, but where the healthy choice is the unavoidable choice,” Buettner explains.
How communities can become certified
He points to the largest city on his roster—Ft. Worth, TX—as a shining example of the project’s ability to transform a community for the better.
Blue Zones worked with the city of almost 1 million people to secure an $8.5 million bond for a series of capital projects for its downtown West 7th street. Landscaped medians, wider sidewalks, pedestrian and bike lanes, better illumination, and improved traffic signals were all added.
Buettner says these changes revitalized the area and its residents.
Similar improvements were made in Albert Lea, MN, he says. Downtown Main Street was struggling with shuttered businesses and not enough foot traffic.
“They were about to increase the speed limit,” he says. “We advised the opposite: to lower it.”
He says the result was less noise and air pollution, more foot traffic, revamped businesses, and a rise in property values.
In Jacksonville, FL, Buettner says Blue Zones was integral in getting the city to ban smoking in public parks.
“It’s not just about making it harder to smoke, but about litter and air quality,” he points out.
Nor does it hurt for a community to be associated with the popular term, “blue zones.” It can even be beneficial for property values.
One need only to look to the Seventh-day Adventist community of Loma Linda, CA—the sole city in the U.S. that has earned official blue zone status. Savvy local real estate agents often play up the designation their listings.
“Live in Loma Linda, the only Blue Zone in the United States, and enjoy everything this healthy, vibrant community has to offer. Schedule your tour today!” enthuses one listing—a four-bedroom, $660,000, single-family home.
“It’s definitely a selling point,” admits Janet Burke, of Re/Max Advantage, who has sold residential real estate in the area for almost 30 years.
The one thing communities need
There is one thing a community needs if it is ever to become a blue zone—more than bike lanes, healthy food options, or walkability.
Buettner says he can consult with a community until he’s, well, blue in the face; but unless a place is ready to make real changes, it’s all for nothing.
“You can’t do anything to anybody; people have to be ready to do it to themselves,” he says. “As Hippocrates said, ‘Before you heal someone, ask him if he’s willing to give up the things that make him sick.’”
He has high hopes that Miami Beach is willing.
“Miami Beach is already on a journey,” he says. “We just want to be part of it.”
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