Quality of Life in Miami-Dade (insurance, credit, job market)

[AnnRyan]

Okay, so I'm curious, what do you think are the top 3 positives and the top 3 negatives about living in Miami? Here are mine:

Positives
1) Weather
2) Great restaurants
3) The Beach

Negatives
1) Traffic
2) Cost of Housing
3) High Unemployment/Underemployment

[bale002]

Originally Posted by AnnRyan

Okay, so I'm curious, what do you think are the top 3 positives and the top 3 negatives about living in Miami? Here are mine:

Positives
1) Weather
2) Great restaurants
3) The Beach

Negatives
1) Traffic
2) Cost of Housing
3) High Unemployment/Underemployment

Positives

1) Warmth and water (i.e. weather).

2) No state income tax.

3) Cost of housing (c'mon Ann, Miami is still cheap compared, apples to apples, to almost every other major metro area around the world, and even traffic ain't that bad in comparison to some).


Negatives

1) Horrible restaurants (except my house).

2) Except the beach, the natural setting is not pretty at all, actually quite drab.

3) Lack of depth - economic, educational, cultural, architectural, artistic - but it's still very early days in the history of Miami, give it some time, another 100-300 years or so.

Good Luck!

[perry335654]

Positives:
Beautiful city with the diversity of palm trees and beautiful gulf stream waters
warm weather mostly year round
beautiful modern architecture along with art deco found in miami beach


negatives:


Too expensive


traffic can be a headache




under-utilized agriculturally

[Ste68]

I know Miami only from turist. In the last years I visited Miami several times and I have this opinion.

Weather: Wonderful all the time
The beach: you have a great beach long kilometers where to enjoy the sea.
Traffic: Terrible but not different from other big cities ( in Italy, Milano,Roma,Napoli...)
Cost of housing: Expensive, certainly it's Miami, You try to buy in Milano.
Restaurants: This topic is more complicated. I have often eaten badly, sometimes sufficently good and few times good. There is a much different between neighborhoods and sometimes I often ate better in the neighborhoods less affluent.

[Wordsmith12]

Positives:

-Great weather
-Beaches
-Food
-Cultural diversity

Negatives:

-Traffic
-Many rude people
-Shallow
-Not a true sports town

[ruski]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE8IZjNeE8M

[UrbanCrossroads]

Positives:
- The beaches
- Good options of things to do on weekend nights.
- Weather can be hit or miss. This year's weather was mostly great (virtually rain-free in the summer).

Negatives:
- Lack of diversity. The county is 65% Hispanic and the bulk of that is Cuban.
- High cost of living. Not just housing but also things like auto insurance and grocery prices.
- Superficiality. People living above their means. It's very typical to see a luxury car parked on the driveway of a small house.

[CXT2000]

Pros:
- Beaches
- Big Pink waffles
- Not many potholes

Cons:
- Too expensive
- Not diverse enough
- Lack of transportation
- Superficial/Fake people everywhere (SoBe + Wynwood especially)

[ruski]

Do we all have different definitions of "diversity"?

[bale002]

Originally Posted by ruski

Do we all have different definitions of "diversity"?

Words are tools that come out of human beings' mouths, one at a time.

So, on that basis, yes, we can all have different definitions of "diversity".

Just yesterday, my son asked me what "humility" and "arrogant" mean. We looked them up, and the dictionary definitions lacked full meaning, in fact they were quite a way off the mark, so I supplied my own definition. Why should I trust the dictionary writers? Are they not human beings?

Anyway, in my view, this so-called "diversity" as it is widely used today is superficial, just a propaganda smokescreen. What matters in "depth". Miami lacks depth, but what do you expect after only one hundred years of history? It's a mere pittance. It's still very early days, give it time, maybe another hundred to three hundred years.

Another nitpicking topic, for the fun of it of course, I don't give credit to people who list "food" (or even restaurants) as one of the top aspects of quality of life in Miami: as perry335654 mentioned, the county's potential agricultural output is underutilized, and probably shrinking (in Broward it is all but eliminated), the vast majority of the food we eat here is imported from other regions of the state, the country and abroad. We basically eat the same things as anywhere else. What, cuban sandwiches, cuban coffee? Please.

Finally, I can understand that to people who rely on generating income in the local job market (that "depth" thing again) the cost of living seems expensive, but to people who come here from afar with big balance sheets, Miami is still a grand bargain compared to other major cities in the US and elsewhere, and such people have been driving Miami's economy over the past 15 years or so and will continue to do so over at least the next 15 years or so, like it or not.

Good Luck!