How odd, to pick up the Herald real estate section and see shiny new condominiums offered for under $199K. Who can’t afford that?

It’s the new-new-Miami, and the motto could very well be: Developers, Manage Your Expectations.

With a sub motto of: Let’s Call Colombia And See If We Can Offload Some Of These Units.

But this isn’t Las Vegas, where projects are announced and cancelled the following week. Miami continues the skyward climb, and it seems to be doing it with a quickness.

Downtown offers the most dramatic window on the future, perhaps.

Here, there are just a couple of vacant spaces left along the Brickell/Biscayne corridor (You May Also Call It U.S. 1) between the Rickenbacker (Key Biscayne) and MacArthur (South Beach) causeways. It is jarring to drive up past the Bayside Marketplace (thee should hold thy nose) and see a wall of high-rise buildings to the left. The Freedom Tower, formerly the only thing to look at on that side of the street, looks puny.

So the promised changes are coming. And while maybe not facing the bay along Biscayne, do expect some bargains around these parts.

Do not, expect, however, an insta-neighborhood. The city center remains a virtual deadzone after dark, with the exception of the activity at the AA Arena (Go Heat, one supposes), the Performing Arts Center (I like to call it the mega-church, which is sort of what it looks like), the nightclubs of the northwestern reaches (such as Karu), and lately, Brickell Village, which has, in a just-now-opening shopping complex, a P.F. Chang’s. (Oh, boy!) It will soon get an Oceanaire Seafood Room and a Rosa Mexicano.

All this upscale-chain goodness is found just steps from Tobacco Road, one of the last remaining reminders that there was life before 1950 in this crazy town. Colin Farrell sort of lived there during the shooting of Miami Vice – the bar sent a favorite stool home with him.

But the biggest news in all of downtown, since these days, we are reduced to anticipating things like organic kale at inflated prices, is the Whole Foods Market, going in to Brickell Village soon-ish. Finally, all those swinging bachelors living at the Four Seasons can send their people out for soy milk. That’s living. (Ain’t it?)