The Multimedia District is a community of creative entrepreneurs clustered in an area that is known as the “Hollywood of South Florida.” It is located in North Miami.

My name is Melanie Feliciano, and I bought a condo in this zip code back in 2005, at the height of the real estate boom. You may have seen me on HGTV’s “My First Place.”

Yeah, those were the good ol’ dayz, before The American Dream died.

But punk spirit is alive and kickin.

You can’t rely on a steady paycheck anymore, or even a retirement plan. You gotta Do It Yourself. DIY.

For 12 years I have been training myself in this mentality so I can fight the war against unemployment. I’ve identified the thriving markets - cleantech, seeds, music, pessimistic people, blogging - and I am applying my skills in building multimedia to them.

I am also ridding myself of unnecessary baggage - consolidating all my debt into one loan, canceling my high cell phone plan, selling clothes I don’t wear. I can pack everything I need into one suitcase and one backpack. Simplification is the key to survival in the next three years and I will be prepared to live on water and do all my business virtually - because that’s where we seem to be headed in this warming globe we call Earth.

I am teaching others how to DIY so they can also survive. Eventually I will move from a service oriented business model to a real estate business model - selling square pixels of space. Real estate doesn’t get more Eco than this!