You can get objective criteria. As someone who lived there until literally months ago for much of my adulthood, there are definitely serious issues for a tech/startup city.
The education system isn't highly rated overall so you'll have to choose carefully if you have kids. Similar if you're depending on a pool of local tech talent.
There was some social media stuff about it being a tech city but that was based on the mayor's Twitter exchange with Elon and then some sort of sales guy in the mayor's office and their hype.
For all the social media blips it generated, no major tech companies have moved any offices there since and many of the local companies are looking to move either upstate to areas like Orlando (or even out of state) to get away from of the Miami issues.
Take objective results like cost of living, rent, education quality (if you have kids it's one measure and hiring is another of course), traffic, crime, average income, etc. Maybe even go and visit for a couple months in the summer since people from up north would sometimes complain about our heat and humidity lol.
"The education system isn't highly rated overall so you'll have to choose carefully if you have kids."
This is an understatement. Virtually everyone I knew in Florida who had kids sent them to private school. These weren't rich people (they weren't in tech). Anyone who was remotely middle class would find a way to scrap the funds together because the public schools were so horrendous.
True. Forgot about that since most of my family and friends did same and since I was half public and half private myself lol.
Sad actually when you think of the tax base and population count.
They pay their teachers significantly less than other states. Especially after you factor in the cost of living (FL is not nearly as affordable as people in NY/CA think it is).
This results in public schools taking whatever they can get teacher-wise. Where I grew up (NJ) being a public school teacher was a respectable career that people would actually go to college and study for. It's not like that in FL. A lot of teachers are just people who couldn't find a job elsewhere and need to pay the bills.
Would you mind providing more info on why you left? Did the city push you out or did you pursue opportunity elsewhere? Outside of the issues you outlined for tech, how is life there otherwise?
Salaries esp in tech and tech management are much better elsewhere even in the state itself.
Jacksonville I believe was ranked as the fastest growing US metro area but I might be mistaken on that. Orlando is seeing serious and major construction - both residential and even more so commercial.
The traffic is awful but that's a given in I think every major city I've spent months or lived in - DC, Atlanta, etc.
You should take a look at Orlando and Tampa (45 minutes from Orlando) and maybe Jacksonville if you're trying to escape the snow and that type of weather. But if you're committed to moving to South Florida, maybe also look about 30 minutes north of it to Ft Lauderdale and those areas. Tampa/St Petersburg has some great beaches too if you're into beaches.
Grew up in Miami and spent a few years moving around before settling here for a while with a remote job after the pandemic, personally I love this city but not because of it's tech scene or it's business culture.
I would say the Miami tech scene post-2020 was a meme brought about by crypto hype and our politicians trying to court them. The scene here became a cryptobro scene sometime in 2021 which made me drop out of going to meetups or hackathons because everything was some blockchain, NFT ponzi scheme. I had someone try to sell me on developing what amounted to a timeshare-apartments-on-the-blockchain startup, that was the last straw for me lol.
Outside of the illusion created during COVID, the tech scene here is somewhat limited. That's both in it's size and also the domains you can work in. There's a strong bias towards fintech so if you're not interested in something in that realm you're going to have a harder time. Generally though I found that salaries also tended to be below average for comparable metros. My first job out of college locally started me at $45,000 and two years later I was able to go up to ~$70,000 but that was basically the ceiling at that job unless I moved into management. After that I moved into working fully remote because it was more difficult to find jobs that paid well enough locally. Generally Ft. Lauderdale a bit north gives a lot better opportunity both in salary and domains, so maybe look into those.
Salary issues with the local scene aside, S. Florida also has an extremely cut throat business culture. I've never experienced more wage theft and outright fraud in the workplace, so something to consider if you're trying to start a business down here.
I'm happy to give input if needed, or you could email me.
I live here and am job hunting now. I've seen very few positions available in Miami, almost all of which have salary ranges lower than remote roles. I'm probably going to move back to NYC or something when the lease runs up, the risk of catching another layoff and getting stranded here if remote fully dries up is just too high.
The meme seems to come from people who dislike NYC/SF cheerleading widely publicized relocations from there to Miami. Tons of VC types moved their executives' offices* down here during the pandemic to take advantage of taxes and basically start their retirement early.
* Generally speaking they didn't move most of their minions out of NYC, so the minions still need to shell out for the rent and taxes.
There are many large funds with offices in Miami, including Millennium, Och-Ziff, BridgeWater, Citadel, Balyasny, Point72, Two Sigma, Maverick Capital, GLG and Starwood. Citadel and Starwood moved their headquarters to Miami. Crain says Guggenheim is moving to Miami.
I don’t know about these specific finance firms but in Texas companies move corporate headquarters for tax benefits but don’t move the workers.
Space X and Tesla made a big deal about moving to Texas but it was recently announced they are closing the small engineering teams and moving the ‘engineer headquarters’ back to Silicon Valley.
Miami is definitely a hub for traditional private equity, but partially that is owners wanting lower tax and who were already splitting time between the NY area and FL. In many cases the main bulk of operations stay in the NY area, with a smallish 'HQ' in FL.
Not sure this will translate into tech oriented funds.
Just recently came back from yet another trip to Miami and in my opinion it puts most other US metropolitan cities to shame. Miami's sprawling development, balance of urban density and natural open spaces, network of enclaves / hubs of activity, relative cleanliness, paved roads, coastal access, and obviously weather, have all made me seriously consider it for my next move. I've lived in both LA and NYC for over a decade each and have grown so disheartened by their states of utter disrepair. When people start to believe the grunge and filth of a city is part of its charm, you know Stockholm Syndrome has set in. I used to be that way until I started spending extended time in cities with more thoughtful planning and a modicum of self-respect.
I apologize and didn't mean to come off as snarky.
And yes, anytime I'm in NYC I'm prepared for the bumps in my cab rides.
I thought you were honestly using it as either humor or an experiment and such but I didn't mean to come off like I did.
Totally my bad and I edited my comment to remove the items that came across as snarky.
Building, and the will to build is so key to a city's vitality. Hearing Miami is this way very much makes me want to visit and see it with my own eyes.
Do you know of any other American cities that are like this right now?
Austin is like that, the crane is our unofficial mascot.
But meta, google, bytedance, intel, ibm, indeed and others have said they are canceling leases on these big beautiful downtown office towers and have been laying off mass amounts of local people.
I dunno.. LA and Miami feature basically the same construction styles since they've developed and expanded around the same time. Miami reminds me of West LA + Santa Monica just more humid. The rest of the area is giant suburbia. The downtown area did feel less busy and more walkable however. There was no massive homeless presence though which I think is because of heavy police enforcement?
I think if interest rates had stayed low and we hadn't had the AI boom centered in San Francisco, then it would've been.
But with the interest rate increases and the follow on impact on lower startup funding and layoffs, plus the AI boom in SF, I think it didn't become reality.
Honestly this is the first i've ever heard of it. Was it even a meme? I'm sure there might be some tech companies there? I've just never heard it mentioned in any of my circles.
It was trying to be a “tech/crypto” hub, but really it was just hedge funds and wealthy investors getting tired of mask mandates in their home states and “moving their businesses” to Miami - compounded by Elon talking with city officials on Twitter.
I think Miami is a poorly managed, over policed, and a very segregated city - with a heavy focus on leisure and entertainment for tourism. In the same vain, I’d actually say Las Vegas is a bigger tech hub and more business friendly than Miami (honestly better weather too, the humidity and spastic thunderstorms in Miami are rough)
I think Miami has a lot of foundational issues that will prevent it from ever becoming a serious tech city:
- the Spanish language is more prevalent than English and there might be even some prejudice against people who don't speak Spanish;
- it's primarily a vacation and retirement place where people go to have fun, drink, and engage in shady business (florida man)
- it doesn't have good universities
- the primary other industry is real estate only
You're saying there is general prejudice against non Spanish speakers in Miami? I could understand this in certain industries that heavily interface with Spanish speakers, but just in general? Really?!
This is my anecdotal experience - there has been a lot of fluff around several products, possibly because of low interest rates. There are few focused builders but the rest seem to preach the concept of “building” but really it all seems to be for show
The education system isn't highly rated overall so you'll have to choose carefully if you have kids. Similar if you're depending on a pool of local tech talent.
There was some social media stuff about it being a tech city but that was based on the mayor's Twitter exchange with Elon and then some sort of sales guy in the mayor's office and their hype.
For all the social media blips it generated, no major tech companies have moved any offices there since and many of the local companies are looking to move either upstate to areas like Orlando (or even out of state) to get away from of the Miami issues.
Take objective results like cost of living, rent, education quality (if you have kids it's one measure and hiring is another of course), traffic, crime, average income, etc. Maybe even go and visit for a couple months in the summer since people from up north would sometimes complain about our heat and humidity lol.