Kendall is an unincorporated community, not a city, covering about 16 square miles of southwest Miami-Dade between U.S. 1 and the Turnpike. Decades of landscaping and an inland climate make its yards busy places for insects and rodents.
Kendall is a census-designated place in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, 14 miles southwest of downtown Miami, with 80,241 residents and 33,350 housing units in the 2020 census. The Florida Land and Mortgage Company bought the land from the state in 1883, and the place takes its name from Henry John Broughton Kendall, a company director who came to manage it. Until the 1950s it was mostly pine rockland broken by fields and groves.
Rapid building started in the 1950s near U.S. 1 and moved west through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Hurricane Andrew destroyed many homes and businesses here in August 1992, and the area was rebuilt over the following years. The result is housing that ranges from mid-century houses to post-Andrew rebuilds. Before recommending a plan we ask how old the framing is, what grows over the roofline and how near the closest canal runs.
