Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why I moved to Miami

abunsen.ruhoh.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 342 posts

Re: Why I moved to Miami

#171

Post by virtualwhys »

dnishimura wrote: post #161
DanBlake wrote: post #106

I just moved from SF to Miami Beach a month ago. I loved SF but if you have the ability to work from home as I do, financially it does not make sense to stay. I honestly would have preferred to move to Honolulu over here but the only area I liked (Tantalus/roundtop/pacheights) really didn't (at the time) have any nice houses for sale that were under 5 million. Also, while the cost of living is way down here, so is th…

Honolulu's cost of living is comparable. Housing costs are slightly lower but food is much more expensive. I make just a little over 90k as a senior engineer and still living pay check to pay check. I probably can make almost double in SF from talking with other engineers I know there so it may be better for me to move.

Sadly, same on the north shore, rents are ridiculously high, particularly during the winter when the waves are pumping.

I paid $1,600/month a few winters ago for basically a wooden shack with tin roof and high speed internet (across the street from V-land).

Nice work/life balance, code, surf, code, surf, woohooo ;-)

Re: Why I moved to Miami

#172

Post by elchief »

I worked for a VoIP startup an hour north of Miami. They got bought for $300M.

I got to live in one of the owner's mansions, by myself. It had nine bathrooms.

Oddly enough, you hear a lot of French there. From the Haitian taxi drivers to the Snow Birds from Quebec. You can buy good Quebecois beer at some stores.

Miami itself is pretty nice. Reminds me of Vancouver and San Diego. Not a big fan of Cuban food, but the nightlife is top-notch. Beach scene is cool if you like beaches. It's pretty hot, but everything has crazy good A/C. Can fly to the Bahamas/Bermuda/St. Barth's whenever you want. Cheap flights up the East Coast too.

It helps to have a car, though they have a seemingly underused elevated public train. It's a good place to bike, as there are essentially no hills.

Regarding taxes, I was paying essentially the same income tax + payroll tax in Florida as I do in British Columbia (though BC has pretty low taxes). Plus free healthcare in Canada. Gas, booze, smokes are basically half the price in Florida as Canada though.

On the bad side...

Peeps are a little shallow, though there is an okay arts community. Not exactly an intellectual climate. I'm sure it can be found, but I didn't.

Palm Beach is a weird fucking place. Richest zip code in America (or was at the time I was there). West Palm Beach was the per-capita murder capital of America. Cops on the bridges to keep the homies out. Lots of boarded-up shops in West Palm during the height of the boom in 2008. Didn't make sense.

There were three murders (of rich white people) that I heard of during the year I was there. The locals are poorly educated, but there are lots of bright imports from around America that make it interesting.

So if you like your artsy, intellectual coffee-shop community of San Fran or Seattle, Miami might not be for you. But if you like clubbing at nights and laid-back days, it's pretty good.

Re: Why I moved to Miami

#173

Post by Crake »

grogenaut wrote: post #152
Crake wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always happy to have friends visit me here. I'm from the midwest, and most of my friends there have never been to NYC. It blows their minds, every time.

funny, it's blows my nyc friends mind to come to the midwest and eat at a real resturant. Non-argentine beef, local cheese and milk, local well yeah. Not as great as what you can get locally west coast but the beef and game are awesome in the midwest.

Ah, there are some good places in the midwest, too. But there's many more independent restaurants here, all doing different things. I don't know what a "real" restaurant is to you, but to me, the biggest city in the united states certainly has more than a few of them.

Compare this to where I grew up: the only places to eat closeby were mcdonalds, wendy's, and burger king type places. We didn't even have (and still don't have) a starbucks, and it was a ~big deal~ when chipotle and then a panera came in.

I do miss cheap gas station slushies, though. They're hard to find here in NYC.

Re: Why I moved to Miami

#174

Post by qwerta »

paul9290 wrote: post #60

Taxes here in the states are overall disgusting, though you don't realize it until your salary inches upwards. When your making 40K to 55K here in the states the amount of taxes taken seems like a fair share. Though when you almost double that you wonder what's the point of making more money on paper as in your pocket you only make 60 to 65 percent of of your earnings - WTH?

How about 65% taxes? Welcome to Europe :-)

Re: Why I moved to Miami

#175

Post by jamesaguilar »

goatslacker wrote: post #119

I was born and raised in Miami and my family still lives there so I visit quite often. I moved to the Bay Area not too long ago (3 years) for work and IMO it's no comparison. Miami is a great place to live if your priorities are partying. There are excellent night clubs and beautiful men and women everywhere. The Bay Area holds an advantage over almost every point the OP made. Rent is ~$2k for a 2 bedroom 2 bath if y…

When he said the weather is nice for the winter and also pretty OK most of the summer I just had to wonder. I mean, different strokes for different folks but man, that is a totally different yardstick than how I measure weather, and I grew up in Florida.

Re: Why I moved to Miami

#176

Post by mahyarm »

Patrick_Devine wrote: post #111
redthrowaway wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being in Vancouver/Victoria helps. It's basically Bay Area climate.

Well, not quite. In the summer Vancouver/Victoria are both way nicer than SF. I personally don't think there is a nicer place to be in August. In the winter, they're both colder. Neither compare to the peninsula though. It's still mid-20s in Palo Alto during the day right now whereas its mid-teens in Vancouver.

Pst, Seattle has nearly identical weather too. And it's half price! (ish)

Re: Why I moved to Miami

#177

Post by mahyarm »

TheLegace wrote: post #121
hackula1 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who grew up in Milwaukee and moved to Charleston, I agree 100%. One of my largest clients is in Milwaukee now and I can say definitively that I have lost all tolerance for that bitter cold. And to all you Canadians living north of the wall... I don't know how you do it.

I actually really prefer the Winter. I personally think when you start feeling like a Canadian is when you enjoy the winter weather. For whatever reason the sun in Canada really seems to burn(at least in Toronto area) and it can get really humid in the summers. But in the winter you can always just bundle up and feel comfortable.

I'm a canadian, I really appreciate the weather down in the bay area after growing up in seattle weather for my childhood and college years. Don't miss the rain and the cold, or the 'lack of seasons' some friends seem to complain about.

Re: Why I moved to Miami

#178

Post by pearjuice »

This is what all job postings should look like. That was amazing and it got me hooked until the end. If you are a Ruby developer looking for a new gig and was not surprisingly convinced at the end of that read, I don't know how job postings could possibly improve.

Re: Why I moved to Miami

#179

Post by seanmcdirmid »

grogenaut wrote: post #160
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle gets snow maybe once every 2 years, otherwise you only see it if you go to the passes or on a clear day when you can see it on the mountains. Now rain on the other hand....

by snow I mean snow in the mountains, the type that is fun, not snow in town, the type that causes other fun but not as useful

I'm sure you were just trying to scare off the Californians.

Seattle Cascade snow is wet and icky; it's not the dry soft powder they get in Utah or other places in the Rockies. There are way better places for snow than Seattle.

Re: Why I moved to Miami

#180

Post by idProQuo »

Crake wrote: post #131
fchollet wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in NYC for a year, working right next to Hell's Kitchen. While the food is great, it's certainly not "incomparable". Paris has better restaurants. Tokyo has better restaurants (cheaper too in that case). Even San Francisco has comparable food standards. You end up sounding just like so many New-Yorkers --annoying and conceited. But no, living there doesn't make you special. It's just a big city, and not the o…

I think once you're hitting the level of "one of the biggest cities in the world" there's almost guaranteed going to be really awesome cuisine. I thought Paris had really great food when I was there, I'm sure Tokyo's got delicious offerings as well (I love Japanese food, mmm). I just moved to NYC, though, and the food options here are incomparable to anywhere else in the US I've been. (Note: I haven't been to San Fra…

> To top it off, I had the best lamb and rice meal I've ever had...for $5 from a halal food cart. (I actually spent an hour today looking for the cart again, I liked it THAT much, but it was nowhere to be found. I will look again tomorrow!!)

If I were to guess, I'd say it was Halal Boys Platters on 53rd and 6th. Those guys are legendary.

Post reply on HN