Is Miami a Good Place to Live?

The fast and simple answer is, yes, Miami is a good place to live! In fact, if you look at various polls and reports over the last decade you’ll see that Miami is actually a great place to live – ranked seventh in the country in terms of finance, commerce, culture, entertainment, education and more in 2010; ranked “America’s Cleanest City” by Forbes magazine in 2008; and ranked the richest city in the United States in 2009, so Miami really does have a lot going for it. But let’s break it all down and look individually at the safety, employment rates, cost of living, and education:

Safety in Miami

Miami isn’t renowned as a particularly dangerous or crime-ridden city, but, like most others of its size there are problem areas. According to City-Data.com, Miami is above average when it comes to the number of crimes, registering fairly high on the scale for thefts and burglaries, and is significantly higher on the violent crimes index than the national average.
The Miami Police Department has a Crime Mapping Program on their website where you can stay informed about crimes in the city in an effort to prevent becoming a victim of crime.

Employment Opportunities in Miami

There’s no doubt that there’s a lot of money in Miami. It was ranked as the richest city in the United States in 2009 and it’s a major center for commerce and finance. Many national and multinational companies have their headquarters in or around Miami including Burger King, Carnival Cruise Lines, Telemundo, and U.S. Century Bank, but it’s also the Latin American HQ for American Airlines, Disney, Cisco, Sony, FedEx, Exxon, and many more
Despite this unemployment rates were a percentage point higher than the national average in 2012 at 9.6 percent, though the good news is this is lower than in 2000 when it hit 11.7 percent, and poverty is high compared to the national average so there isn’t an even distribution of wealth in the city.

Cost of Living in Miami

Being one of the richest cities in the country you’d expect the cost of living to be high to match this, but Miami is actually quite an affordable place to live – for a big city anyway. It’s just 8.3 percent higher than the national average, and if you look at the utilities index Miami is actually 6 percent below the national average. Goods and services, groceries, health care, housing, and transportation all come in a little above national averages, but again, for a big city this makes Miami really quite affordable.

Miami’s Schools and Education

Miami-Dade County Public Schools is the largest school district in Florida and only the fourth largest in the US, and the city includes some of the best high schools in the country such as Coral Reef High School, Design and Architecture High School, and MAST Academy. In fact, seven of Miami’s public high schools are ranked within the top 200 in the United States. There are private schools to choose from too, and a high number of students go on to enroll in local colleges and universities.
These institutions include University of Miami, Miami Dade College, and Florida International University.

Air Quality in Miami

You can breathe easy in Miami because the air quality index is 10.8 percent less than the national average. This is quite an achievement for a city of Miami’s size. Miami was also heralded for its ample green spaces, clean streets, city-wide recycling, and clean drinking water when it was ranked America’s cleanest city by Forbes magazine in 2008.