Indian Creek, FL

Indian Creek is a tiny village on a man-made barrier island in Biscayne Bay, tucked between Bay Harbor Islands, Surfside, Miami Beach, and North Miami. The 2020 census counted 84 residents. The island's physical layout is unusually simple: a single private road runs east-west, the Indian Creek Country Club occupies most of the land, and the original plan set out 41 residential lots. The village began as a real-estate venture and country club setting in 1928, then incorporated in 1939. Its whole story is tied to the fact that a Miami-area municipality can be a bridge, a narrow road, a club, and one exceptionally small island.

If you live here, the geography is the scoop. The village keeps its own government and law enforcement, yet its school assignments lead across the water to Broad/Bay Harbor K-8 Center, Miami Beach Nautilus Middle School, and Miami Beach Senior High. Most of the island's daily pattern is set by the homes, the club, and the private road; the mainland and neighboring barrier-island communities provide the larger Miami setting. Indian Creek is less a conventional town with a commercial center than a sharply bounded residential enclave whose entire map can be understood in a few landmarks: water, bridge, road, club, and the nearby Miami coast.