A bit over a year and a half ago I moved to Miami for work, to co-locate with my cofounders for the company we were building. I’ve since returned to the West coast, this time the Los Angeles — also for work, our initial launch market.
I don’t really get perspective on the places I’ve lived until I leave them. It’s too easy for me to take their special aspects for granted while I’m there. Only when I moved to London did I understand what made New York special; only when I moved to San Francisco did I truly understand London. And now that I’m back on the West coast, I’m better able to reflect on my time in Miami: what it gave me and what I miss (or don’t) about it.
People will always visit you in Miami. I had more friends visit in 15 months living there than i did in 11 years living in SF. Everyone’s got a reason: bachelorette party, NYE, music week, F1, Art Basel, birthday, work conferences, just raging for a weekend, whatever! From November through early May my social calendar was jammed. Conversely, the city empties out from May to November. Most of my Miami-based friends were traveling — Europe, around the US, around the world. Why spend summer in Miami when there are a ton of places with just as nice weather in those months — and no potential for hurricanes?
The weather is polarizing. I loved it. But I also grew up with hot, humid summers. So to me, living in Miami is like permanent summer. It’s actually never been above 100 in Miami (and has only hit 100 once, in 1942). I’d find living in Arizona heat way more oppressive. Plus, Arizona’s not on the ocean. In Miami it can dip down into the 60s, 50s, or even 40s, but the humidity is a constant. If you don’t tolerate humidity, don’t move there.
The city revolves around the entertainment industry. To quote a friend, it’s Vegas sur-la-mer. As much noise as there’s been about recent tech transplants, that was mostly a crypto/web3 and pandemic thing. Every city has a dominant industry around which much of the social life and power structures revolve. In New York it’s finance. In San Francisco it’s tech. And in Miami, it’s entertainment & nightlife.
As a corollary, going out is great — but expensive. People come to Miami to party. And since a lot of the people who spend money on entertainment in Miami are visiting on special occasions, the price of all kinds of going out is much higher. The same DJ I would see for $30 in San Francisco or LA was $90 in Miami. Your Uber might be cheaper, but everything else involved in going out is going to be as expensive, or more, compared to other major cities.
On a similar note, the food scene is flashy, but not necessarily a foodie’s dream. Papi Steak, Mila, Sexy Fish — all great places to see and be seen. The food is fine for the price but it won’t win any Michelin stars. But that’s not why you’re there: you’re there because it’s an excuse to get dressed up, you might spot a celebrity, and if you order a tomahawk steak the kitchen brings it out with bottle boys and girls and sparklers and the whole dining room pauses to gawk at the display.
It’s not a very diverse food scene. There are high end places and low end places, but very little worth checking out in the middle. There’s vanishingly little Asian food. This all makes sense, though, given the dynamics of the local economy. Los Angeles, in contrast, has food from every ethnicity imaginable at just about every price point. (It’s probably unfair to contrast to LA, which has just about the most dynamic food scene in the country.)
If you’re going to live in central Miami (roughly triangulated by Buena Vista, Miami Beach, and Brickell) the cost of living is quite high. Sure, there’s no income taxes, but your property taxes are higher, it’s pricier to go out, and many large buildings in that area have all kinds of amenities that raise the cost of real estate. If you’re moving from LA or SF the cost of your life will be fairly similar to what you left.
For work, tech is small. Several high-potential startups that began in Miami left because it was too hard to recruit mid-senior talent to move to South Florida. New grads will move and established companies will create offices there, but companies in the midst of scaling will struggle — unless they’re designed to be remote. During the pandemic, when everyone was working remotely, it made a lot of sense — especially for crypto companies. Now that people are working in-person again (and I’m amongst those who prefers in-person work), Miami’s lack of critical tech talent mass makes it a difficult city to prioritize above SF, NYC, or LA for company-building.
Dating wasn’t my style. Before I moved, I talked to a lot of people around my age living in Miami. The consensus was: for someone moving from NY or California, you either date someone long distance or you bring your partner with you. Miami is culturally quite different from a lot of major U.S. metros and that translates into different dating expectations and behavior.
Every culture has embedded assumptions about the roles each gender plays in heterosexual dating and relationships. The predominant attitude I encountered in Miami was that it is the man’s role to be (a chauvinistic version of) the breadwinner and caretaker — and engage in all the signaling that comes with that — and it is the woman’s role to look good, support him, and in the future run the household and take care of children. It’s a common enough set of expectations but in Miami it’s stretched into a caricature.
It was a game that I didn’t care to play.
I’m not here to make value judgments about what people want in their relationships. I just noticed that what I was looking for from a romantic partner was hard to find in Miami.
Would I recommend living in Miami?
All of the preceding points to: living in Miami caters to a very specific kind of individual who wants a very specific kind of lifestyle.
My first job out of college was working on Wall Street. I’m glad I had that experience because I learned that the money didn’t matter as much as doing something more personally meaningful did.
I’m glad I lived in Miami because similarly it taught me things about my life that I was taking for granted and didn’t consciously prioritize until they weren’t there.
I certainly still love visiting Miami, but for where I am in my life right now and what I care about, it’s not the right place for me. For the things I’m focusing on — work, eventually finding a partner with shared values and priorities — my time is better spent elsewhere.
But if you’re looking for beautiful weather, incredible people-watching, some of the most mind-blowing all-night parties you’ll ever experience, topped off with a recovery day on the beach? Miami’s got you.