About

Hello and Welcome!

My name is Felipe Azenha and I am a husband, father, self-proclaimed entrepreneur and occasional blogger. I’m passionate about cities and have a lot of ideas and opinions (some of which may not be correct) about how we can make cities more livable and better for everyone.

I first started blogging in 2008 for Transit Miami and quickly caught the “blogging bug”. Transit Miami was an advocacy blog that focused on raising awareness about urban planning and transit issues in South Florida. In 2012, while still writing for Transit Miami, I decided to start my own blog. Miami Urbanist was a blog that focused on Miami real estate and through it I meet some incredible people and several opportunities came my way. Gridics, the company I co-founded, came about because of Miami Urbanist.

If all goes according to plan, I will use Stoic Urbanist to help me along in my journey of self-education and write about my observations and reflections about living in Miami. I’ve lived in Miami for 21 years and this city has truly grown on me. I do love living in this crazy and wacky town even with all its faults.

My intention is to focus my writing on commercial real estate, urban planning, and transportation, but I will also write about entrepreneurship, leadership, sales, reading, learning and strategy. I also truly enjoy interviewing successful people and getting to know what makes them tick.

Felipe Azenha
Founder/Editor

Felipe’s Bio

Felipe was born in Harlem (when it wasn’t trendy) and raised in the uppity NYC suburb of Rye Brook. Felipe graduated from Syracuse University with a B.A. in International Relations. After college, Felipe served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala for 2 years as an appropriate technology project manager. He went on to receive a Master of Science in Organizational Management degree from the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont. For 10 years he worked in international private banking as a relationship manager. While working full time Felipe attended the University of Miami and received a Master in Real Estate Development + Urbanism degree in May of 2012.

In October 2012, he caught the start-up bug, when he was hired by StreetEasy to lead the company’s expansion into the South Florida market. In September 2013 StreetEasy was acquired by Zillow and Felipe spent one year as senior manager of national accounts. In 2015 he co-founded Gridics, a real estate technology company that has developed a patented zoning application for municipalities and the real estate industry. In August of 2021 I joined Beacon Hill Property Group as Director of Land Investment Sales. I am also the co-founder of CinderFit, a patent-pending fitness product which we are launching Winter 2022.

Felipe is actually happily married (11 years, but who’s counting?) to an extremely supportive woman and they have a 8-year-old-boy. The Azenha clan lives in Miami Shores, a village just north of downtown Miami.

Felipe loves bicycles and in 2000 traveled over 800 miles from Guatemala to Panama on a bicycle with 2 friends. He has lived in New York City, Westchester County , London, Sao Paulo, Madrid, Denver, Boulder, Guatemala and now Miami for the past 21 years. He is fluent in Portuguese and Spanish.

He is also involved with several organizations:

Felipe has also guest lectured at the University of Miami and Florida International University