Ask HN: Is Everyone Moving to Miami?

[bluu00]

Recently my whole twitter feed is filled with ppl announcing moving to Miami from SF. As an outsider I only knew about Silicon Valley and followed eminent ppl from tech and VC.

What's going on? Is this a "mass migration"? Something ideological? A movement? Is this about Joe Rogan moving to Austin and Tesla leaving California?

How will this effect tech and innovation in US and the world?

[cableshaft]

Not me. I'd rent there for a short-term, but not live there. Its time is numbered, climate change will make it borderline unlivable (if nothing else, because it'll most likely be underwater by 2050, but also hurricanes and the heat will just get worse).

If you didn't know, the stone around Miami is extremely porous limestone from compressed coral reefs and water from the ocean creeps in, including into their drinking water reservoirs[1], and the city already spends hundreds of millions of dollars[2] on various projects to try to fight against the inevitable.

EDIT: Since I wrote this, by chance I encountered news that an apartment building partially collapsed in Miami-Dade county this morning[3]. At least one death and still 51 people unaccounted for, unfortunately. There's probably going to be more of this over the coming years.

[1]https://www.businessinsider.com/miami-floods-sea-level-rise-...

[2]https://time.com/4932565/hurricane-irma-miami-beach/

[3]https://www.dw.com/en/florida-apartment-building-in-miami-ar...

[TechBro8615]

> it'll most likely be underwater by 2050

To be fair, you could make a similar argument for San Francisco, a city positioned on a fault line that many consider "overdue for the big one."

Over the next 30 years, your risk of dying from a natural disaster in SF might even be greater than in Miami. At least climate change is (mostly) a slow burn. Even with hurricanes, you can see them coming a few days in advance and evacuate. But an earthquake is a sudden and rapid catastrophe that can (will) occur on some unpredictable day in the future. That said, I do agree that erosion seems like a more plausible sudden risk for a coastal city like Miami, especially if it caused yesterday's building collapse.

Climate change messaging, in general, does a poor job of presenting long-term risks and differentiating between them. People aren't concerned about a gradual rise sea levels, temperatures, or even natural disasters – as long as they're confident we can prepare for or predict the catastrophes. But I expect we react differently to a perceived increase in risk of unpredictable and sudden disasters. If the risk of my building collapsing is going to double every year, that's more frightening to me than the possibility of a few more hurricanes.

Fact is, most people just don't care about existential risks. The people who do tend to be neurotic and unpleasant (see: the past 15 months).

[3minus1]

> positioned on a fault line that many consider "overdue for the big one."

Not really related to your main point, but I believe this is a common misconception about earthquakes. S.F. may be likely to have an 8.0 earthquake once every 300 years (I made these numbers up), but just because it's been 400 years since the last one doesn't mean a big one is more likely now. It's more like any given year has a 1/300 chance no matter how long it's been since the last one.

[bruce343434]

And yet, the odds of a longer streak of consecutive years become smaller: (1/300)^n

[cableshaft]

I don't live on the West Coast, I've only visited. But we did have an F3 tornado touch down within 6 miles of my house earlier this week. Rendered about 30 homes unlivable, and completely obliterated one, although thankfully no deaths. Pretty rare for the area, last one of any significant size was in the 1970s. I agree hurricanes they've gotten stupid good at predicting where they'll be.

Tornadoes don't have that luxury. I did prepare a bit ahead of time since I saw a lot of dark red on the radar, but so often the worst of it skirts around us and we never had tornados since I moved here so I wasn't super concerned. Passed out and woke up to tornado sirens and if it was 6 miles further south could have woken up to a tree crashing into my living room or my house being smashed to a pulp.

Part of the reason climate messaging comes across as poor is because it's hard to predict the future with total precision. The predictions are most likely relatively correct in aggregate but any single prediction will undoubtably be wrong, including the degree in which it will get bad (are we going to heat up by 2 degrees, 4 degrees, 8 degrees by 2100?) and the precise timeline (is it going to happen by 2100? 2050? some even say 2030).

So if things don't play out exactly the way it's predicted, people use that as an excuse to claim that it's not a concern and go back to doing the easy thing of whatever the hell they want and letting corporations do as much bad shit to the environment as they want.

Another issue is things like wildfires and earthquakes and hurricanes have other causes besides climate change, and there's been freak weather throughout history, so is it just a freak weather incident like in history or did climate change contribute? Climate change messaging just claims that the overall frequency and intensity of incidents will increase, not that it caused any given one. So that's easy for people to handwave away also for years and decades also, as 'well maybe we're just going through something that was going to naturally occur anyway, like an Ice Age'.

I agree that most people don't spend too much time thinking about existential risks (nor should they necessarily, that's one way to not live much of a life at all). My concern isn't for my personal life, I'm much more likely to die from health or old age before this gets really bad. I'm more concerned about not wanting to contribute to a mass extinction event any more than I already am, and try to get better while still living a full and productive life.

[mbalex99]

I moved to Miami from San Francisco in February. The reason wasn’t because of tech. I couldn’t deal with rising crime and how closed the city was. It was April when a ton more people started flocking to Miami for conferences and events.

A lot of people are here short term. Yes some bought property but it’s certainly not everyone.

Miami feels really well run in comparison to San Francisco. Walking around, I see human feces, needles, dead bodies through overdose. It’s a very clean city, lots of places to buy or rent, very health conscious and there’s a lot of sun!

My major gripe is that it’s kind of hard to walk and find food at the scale of inner Richmond or in Brooklyn. I actually have yet to meet any software engineers like me in the city which kind of sucks. I don’t have anything in common with the e-commerce and crypto people in the city.

I’m not in love with it. But it does the job for me right now given that the city does feel like the better place to be given COVID restrictions. Ultimately I’d love to be in the west coast again due to how much I went backpacking.

[bluu00]

> Walking around, I see human feces, needles, dead bodies through overdose.

wtf? that's not the kind of picture i wish to imagine while talking of SF

[mbalex99]

Sadly SF has a lot of it and has progressively gotten worse.

[p1esk]

That’s exactly the picture of SF I have in my head. Confirmed by regular visits in the last 10 years.

[decafninja]

Is Miami becoming a crypto trader hub? Also what do you mean by e-commerce? Lots of e-commerce sellers holding shop there?

[mbalex99]

I’m not sure I see it as a hub. More like there’s events being held here.

[gaws]

> Recently my whole twitter feed is filled with ppl announcing moving to Miami from SF.

Ask yourself: Are they going there for work or early retirement?

> What's going on? Is this a "mass migration"? Something ideological? A movement?

None of the above. Miami is not, and will never be, the new technological haven many people preach it to be.

[giantg2]

I'm not on the inside but thought I'd share my take.

I think the overall sentiment is that some people are realizing there are alternatives that .eet their criteria. One of the major criteria is probably around getting a job with a top tier tech company and being in an environment/area that promotes the cross pollination of ideas and skills. It might be that the forced remote work has made some people realize they can do that this sort of stuff online, at least to the degree that they find it acceptable. I would also say that the tech culture has expanded to other cities (or at least it exists to some degree) where there wasn't any in the past.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are some ideological or lifestyle differences driving people to other states. Probably some of the same stuff that has prompted some companies to move. Stuff like lower taxes, less regulation (more freedom), lower cost of living (more land or things to buy), less drought to deal with (depends on state), etc. I know I don't have any interest in living in California. I think a lot of that has to do with me liking a more rural life. Yes, I know California has some nice rural areas. California's policies and legislation is basically dominated by the big cities though (not a bad thing, but not my cup of tea).

[decafninja]

As a NYer, I never understood why so many people from here retire to Florida. Yes the beaches are beautiful, but the weather is also scorching - and humid. And hurricanes. Maybe it's the cost?

If I had to pick a warm weather retirement destination, Hawaii would be #1 on my list. Second would probably be SoCal somewhere. I guess both are more expensive than Florida.

[codegeek]

From what I have heard, it is due to Taxes/Costs etc. Most people who move from places like NY/NJ are saving tons on taxes especially things like property tax. Just to give you an example, a 500K home in NY/NJ can average b/w 15k-20K in taxes per year. Yep, you read that right.

[ceilingcorner]

Hawaii is an island in the middle of the ocean. Florida is a quick plane right from anywhere on the East Coast and a reasonable amount of time from Europe. It also happens to be filled with other NYC retirees. People care about people.

[mrfusion]

Believe it or not the weather is beautiful in Florida November through May. And June still gets quite a few nice days.

You really just have four super hot months to struggle through but you’ve got pools and beaches everywhere so not a huge deal.

[mattbrewsbytes]

Florida is one of several states with zero state income tax. If you retire there then you will pay less taxes when withdrawing from retirement accounts. I believe Texas, Arizona and Nevada also have zero state income tax.

[PragmaticPulp]

No. It’s a marketing campaign from those who want to start a trend. People want to advertise themselves as trendsetters and get in on the ground floor if Miami takes off.

It’s possible that Miami might have a growing tech scene, but the idea that everyone is picking up and moving to one specific city just isn’t true.

[bluu00]

Yea. But why? I mean it seems quite aggressive as well. Bashing SF & praising miami religiously and more like a political campaign than a marketing campaign.

[decafninja]

I don't want to get too political, but it seems to be trendy in some circles to bash "high cost of living/high tax" states like California while singing praises of places like Texas, etc.

[slackernewz]

When I'm on Twitter it sounds like that, but when I hang out with people in real life, no one ever mentions Miami at all. I do however know a lot of people personally who moved to Austin.

[the_only_law]

Nah, I’m currently in Florida (albeit a different part) and I’ll probably be leaving in a few years.

The job market feels extremely disappointing for the size of the state, economically and population wise.

Miami in general feels like a city way past it’s cultural prime. Sure one or two companies may be talking about going out there, but every time I try to do some searching, I’d be better off going to some other state. Within the south, Raleigh is probably a much better options and I’d even go back to Atlanta before Miami.

[drstewart]

Anecdotally, everyone I know is moving to the PNW from California. Never met a single person moving to Miami.

[LUmBULtERA]

I don't know a single person who moved to Miami this last year, or ever actually. I have known some people who moved away from there. I don't think anything is going on, there is no "mass migration". I don't see this effecting tech or innovation anywhere.

[Finnucane]

One of my wife's colleagues spent the winter there and was thinking about moving permanently, but after a few moths they came back. It is, apparently, a silly place. Also, soon it will be under the ocean.

[bluu00]

> Also, soon it will be under the ocean.

I wish that's a joke lmao

[p1esk]

I’m moving to Boca Raton from Santa Barbara in a few weeks. Main reasons: weather is nice most of the year, no state tax, and I can actually afford to buy a nice house in a decent neighborhood.

[slater]

Nah.

[misiti3780]

I moved from Miami from NYC a few months back. I did not move for tech, was pretty disappointed with the way NYC is begin run and how they handled COVID.

I love it here, as someone who has not spent a lot of time in Florida before, weather is great (a bit hot now), great food (lots of great NYC restaurants have second locations here), lots of things to do, you can speak Spanish all day.

Best of all, not everyone thinks the same. People have better things to do then argue about politics all day here. I have not seen a Biden or Trump flag and I have been here 4 months.

[sloaken]

Floridas hot summers are a counter part to the norths cold winters. If it is too hot, you go into an AC building or car, just like if it is too cold you go into a heated building or car.

There are a LOT of people who live in Florida for 6 winter months plus a day to be able to say they are Florida residents, and enjoy the nice winter. By memorial day they are all gone.