Key Biscayne

Key Biscayne is an incorporated village occupying the middle of a barrier island whose northern and southern ends are Crandon Park and Bill Baggs — both permanently protected. The developable land is therefore fixed, and has been for decades. What that produces is a small, stable, unusually international residential community with its own schools and village government, one causeway to the mainland, and a genuine sense of separation eight minutes from Brickell. It is one of the few Miami addresses where the constraint on supply is legislative rather than economic.

The island sits south of the city across the Rickenbacker, with parkland at both ends and a small, largely residential centre between them. It is a village in scale — a handful of streets, one main road, and a beach that belongs to the people who live there rather than to a hotel row.

The housing is a mix of single-family and mid-rise oceanfront buildings, most of it built when the island filled in and much of it since renovated. What it is not is a new-construction market: the island is effectively built out, and what comes up is what already exists.

The causeway defines daily life here, for better and worse. Brickell is genuinely close, the island is genuinely separate, and everything depends on one road. Families tend to consider that a feature. It is worth experiencing at a weekday hour before deciding which it is for you.