Brighton Beach attracted an elderly population (who, seemingly, couldn’t afford to go to Miami Beach). The nickname “poor man’s Miami Beach” has been applied to Brighton Beach since at least 1982.
 
In recent years, immigrants from the Ukraine have given Brighton Beach the nickname “Little Odessa.” The nickname “poor man’s Miami Beach” is still infrequently used.
 
 
Wikipedia: Brighton Beach
Brighton Beach is a community on Coney Island in the borough of Brooklyn in New York City. As of 2000 it has a population of 75,692 with a total of 31,228 households.
   
Wikipedia: Miami Beach, Florida
Miami Beach is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The city was incorporated on March 26, 1915. It is located on a barrier island between Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean; the Bay separates Miami Beach from the city of Miami, Florida. The city is often referred to under the umbrella term of “Miami”, despite being a distinct municipality. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 87,933. 55.5% of the population was foreign born. A 2005 population estimate for the city was 87,925. Miami Beach has been one of America’s pre-eminent beach resorts for almost a century.
     
Google Books
Self and community in the city
By Jerome Krase
Washington, DC: University Press of America
1982
Pg. 78:
Today, Brighton Beach is referred to as a sort of “poor man’s Miami Beach”; in 1980 over half of its residents were sixty years of age or older.
         
27 February 1992, Newsday (Long Island, NY), “Brighton Memories"by Raoul Lionel Felder., pg. 52:
Some years later my father began taking me to Brighton when the weather got cold. Brighton had slowly become a sort of retired poor man’s Miami Beach in the years since I had gone there as a child.
 
Google Groups: soc.culture.baltics
Newsgroups: soc.culture.baltics
From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Date: 2000/04/30
Subject: “We don’t go to America”
 
The Electric Telegraph (UK)
29 April 2000
(...)
Had Ilf and Petrov come to New York in the year 2000, they would definitely have visited Brighton Beach, an area in south-east Brooklyn bordering Coney Island. In the past 25 years, 150,000 Soviet emigrants, mostly from Odessa, have settled there, radically altering the face of the neighbourhood. Formerly regarded as “a retired poor man’s Miami Beach”, it is now known as “Little Odessa”.
 
Google Books
Brighton Beach Badlands
By William R. Kennedy
iUniverse
2005
Pg. 64:
It was reported that 150,000 emigrants, mostly former inhabitants of Odessa, have radically changed the face of an area that was formerly nicknamed “a retired poor man’s Miami Beach.”
     
Google Books
1,000 Places to See Before You Die:
Traveler’s Journal
By Patricia Schultz
New York, NY: Workman Pub.
2005
Pg. ?:
Brighton Beach. Brooklyn. New York. Once nicknamed “the retired poor man’s Miami,” this neighborhood next door to Coney lsland is now known as Little Odessa—home to some 150,000 Soviet immigrants who still favor their cabbage pies, lard sandwiches, strong vodka, and sentimental music.
   
NYCinFocus
Brighton Beach Earns Bad Rap Among New Russians
Diana Markosian | Dec 19, 2009
(...)
With roughly 35,000 people living here, the neighborhood once nicknamed “Little Odessa” because of its large Ukrainian population, has gained a new reputation as “a retired poor man’s Miami.”