So I ordered something from America a week ago and then noticed that the delivery tracker said that the package was in transit through the magical land of Opa-locka Florida, so obviously I had to look it up, a city with a name like that deserves some googling (thread)

First of all, wiki says it's name is Native American, shortened from Opatishawockalocka, which, I think we can all agree, is a far superior name

In 2004 Opa-locka had the honour of claiming the highest violent crime rate of any city in the USA.
Opa-locka also had a police officer who was arrested 3 times, fired five times, and was the subject of 40 internal investigations (16 for excessive force).
What a place!

Opa-locka was largely designed by some aviation tycoon called Glenn Curtiss who retired out there with his family. He designed a bunch of motorbikes, zeppelin engines, and wooden planes. This guy developed the first flying boat and worked alongside Alexander Graham Bell!

He was also behind a conspiracy to discredit the Wright Brothers, modifying an old aircraft from another inventor (to make it flight worthy) and claiming that this inventor was the first to achieve sustained flight, not the Wrights.

He was also buddies with the head of the Smithsonian Institute, who then backed his bullshit claim and (after removing the modifications so that they wouldn't be found out) put the craft on display!

In designing the city of Opa-locka Curtiss leaned into a "One Thousand and One Nights" theme, and has street names like Sultan Ave, Ali Baba Ave, and even a Sesame Street.
The city apparently has the largest collection of Moorish revival architecture in the western hemisphere.

And all of this has been building to the crown jewel of Opa-locka, Curtiss' greatest achievement, a pink domed and turreted marvel of Moorish revival architecture, Opa-locka City Hall!

Ok just found out Opa-locka made it illegal to wear saggy pants for thirteen whole years. What the actual fuck. What a blatantly racist policy.

Oh man, I just looked the city hall up on google street view, and it looks like it has been abandoned. Absolutely heartbreaking. Cracked plaster, boarded up windows, chain link fences blocking the entrance, an overturned shopping trolley beside the racist saggy pants sign.

So I found out that Opa-locka has a hot mayor so I go to google him and just look at the top suggested result. Apparently it’s because they had a city commissioner who was being investigated for corruption and drove his car into a tree. Everything about this city is crazy

Here’s the hot 34 year old mayor, who’s first google image result is of course linked to a scandal, as expected of the most interesting city in America. Apparently he’s currently in a feud with the city manager too. (Dunno how trustworthy a source the Miami herald is though)

Ok so when I searched about the mayor another dude called Willie Logan showed up in the results, this dude became mayor of Opa-locka in 1980 when he was just 23 years old! He was the youngest city mayor in all of America at the time.
Also this crazy thing happened to him in 2001:

I found out a bunch more stuff about Opa-locka, like how there’s an Amazon mega warehouse, and a restaurant with a plane cockpit, and an Amelia Earhart park, but this thread is already long enough I reckon.