9 ms·

Wealthy Americans moving to Florida at 4 times the rate of other states

53 points by shaburn 4y ago

arberx 4y ago
Curious how this scales; I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't. People want quality public infra, but don't want to pay taxes. Sounds like a losing battle to me. What usually happens is taxes are shoved into other areas of your life (property, sales).
- ch4s3 4y ago
  Florida does indeed lean on property and sales taxes. You can even build good infrastructure that way.
  - cool_dude85 4y ago
    >You can even build good infrastructure that way. Yeah, but Florida doesn't, really.
    - ch4s3 4y ago
      I don't live there, and don't really have a particular ax to grind here but it looks like Miami is building a lot of flood control infrastructure pretty quickly.
      - kelnos 4y ago
        I wouldn't be surprised if they're leveraging federal funds for that, or at least for a big part of it.
        ch4s3 4y ago
        It looks like a lot of those projects are split in funding between the state and federal government for initial build and the counties are issuing bonds to fund maintenance.
      - yardie 4y ago
        I live here. Miami is not building a lot of flood control infrastructure. Just a few diesel water pumps in tonier parts of town to keep the king tides at bay. The lifted truck/SUV is almost a requirement in the long term. After watching a row of cards flood out on our main street, Biscayne, you want something that drives high and dry.
        ch4s3 4y ago
        It seems like there's a bunch of coastline restoration and mangrove planting happening as well. Has that not started in earnest?
        yardie 4y ago
        Miami Beach is making a valiant attempt. That city has been working on massive climate change projects for some time. We’ll see if it pays off. Miami is a basket case. The city commission held a vote to remove mangroves from the park because they were blocking the view. LOL. Just massive political incompetence.
        ch4s3 4y ago
        A rising tide drowns all cooks
      - cool_dude85 4y ago
        The flood control infrastructure in Miami Beach is to keep the plates spinning a little while longer. Long term, it's underwater.
        ch4s3 4y ago
        I don't see why it couldn't be protected like Amsterdam which is ~6.5' below sea level. Miami for trade and finance purposes is the Amsterdam of the Caribbean and northern chunk of South America and Central America.
        cool_dude85 4y ago
        Amsterdam has the famous dykes, but Miami is built on limestone so sea walls do not work.
        ch4s3 4y ago
        Yeah I didn't mean using the exact same approach. They'll probably have to do things like building artificial reefs, planting mangroves, raising buildings/roads, and maybe something like Tokyo's giant cisterns. In the end it may not work but it seems like it's worth trying for a few decades.
    - mensetmanusman 4y ago
      Roads are nice in my experience
      - goostavos 4y ago
        The roads in Florida are freaking fantastic and pristine almost everywhere. I moved to Seattle ~5 years ago and I still can't get over the fact that the roads are pot holed pieces of crap in a constant state of disrepair. We can't even get white divider lines painted reliably in the downtown core. I don't know where all the tax money goes. However, the downside of those glorious Florida roads is that, well, you need them at all. Everything is sooooooo spread out and flat. I forget until I go back and visit just how far away everything is from everything else. Going to something "just up the road" is a 15-20 minute drive.
        jrs235 4y ago
        The roads in Florida are nice because they don't go through the freeze thaw cycle in winter.
        pandaman 4y ago
        Why they are not nice in California then?
        ch4s3 4y ago
        One imagines there are differences in the abilities of various governments to deliver projects. I’ve read that most of California’s projects go to a handful of contractors with poor records.
        pandaman 4y ago
        So could it be the reason roads are nice in Florida is not the lack of winter freeze but the ability of its government to govern?
- fennecfoxen 4y ago
  You know what Florida has besides taxes? User fees. You can take a brand-new highway here and it'll be a toll road, which means you're the one paying for it, not unrelated taxpayers around the state. You can even finance the construction with private-public partnerships tied to the specific project's success. And because people pay for this infrastructure, it discourages frivolous uses, like the induced demand of overbuilding in the exurbs.
  - cortesoft 4y ago
    It also means poor people can’t use the infrastructure
    - mandmandam 4y ago
      That was likely used as a selling point :/
  - kelnos 4y ago
    That's just a regressive tax that disproportionately hurts lower-income folks the most. I'm so tired of this "I got mine, so fuck you" attitude many people have. If you're wealthy, you probably got there via inheritance, luck, or on the backs and shoulders of the hard work of others. And yet "I won't do my part to pay for basic infrastructure where I live" is the attitude.
    - fennecfoxen 4y ago
      If that’s a regressive tax on the poor, then so are “groceries” and “housing”.
      - imustbeevil 4y ago
        Yes, increasing costs of necessities is regressive. Charging everyone the same fee costs poor people a larger percentage of their income. > A regressive tax is a tax applied uniformly, taking a larger percentage of income from low-income earners than from high-income earners.
- _skel 4y ago
  > People want quality public infra, but don't want to pay taxes. Sounds like a losing battle to me. A lot of people don't really want quality public infra. If they can pay for their own needs themselves, in their gated communities etc., they would rather do that than pay taxes. The people described in this article are wealthy. They want quality private infra.
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    > If they can pay for their own needs themselves, in their gated communities etc. That kind of sounds like California. Crime is so rampant that when I was searching for apartments, these large complexes resemble castles. Heavily fortified and there is a courtyard inside where children can play and families can hang out.
    - kelnos 4y ago
      Not sure where in CA you were looking, but I very rarely see anything like that in SF or the bay area (outside of weird enclaves like Atherton, but I wouldn't go there if you paid me). Courtyards, sure, but I think you're imagining a weird, nefarious spin to them when there isn't any.
      - systemvoltage 4y ago
        In SF Bay Area. East bay (Oakland), South bay (Fremont, SJC) and San Mateo Area. When I was searching for a place, basically every single apartment complex felt like a castle. Not being nefarious, have no interest in it. You’re more than welcome to check for yourself.
    - _skel 4y ago
      Those courtyard-style apartments don't exist because of crime. They exist because it's nice to have a courtyard. Most apartments in the Bay Area have no outdoor space other than a balcony or a small piece of land on the ground floor about the size of the balconies above. Many don't even have that.
- __derek__ 4y ago
  It could be interesting to look at tax burden including HOA fees. With enough HNW residents, gated communities can support good private infrastructure.
- al_mandi 4y ago
  It's not mutually exclusive. Tax money is being wasted left and right, people don't want to pay even more taxes to account for the incompetence that's happening.
- trothamel 4y ago
  The American Society of Civil Engineers rates Florida's infrastructure as a C. Compare that to California at a C-, New York at C, and America as a whole at C-. https://infrastructurereportcard.org/state-by-state-infrastructure/ https://infrastructurereportcard.org/state-by-state-infrastr... They seem to be a lobby group for more infrastructure investment, but they don't see Florida as worse than other states.
  - arberx 4y ago
    How useful of a metric is this if, literally, a majority of states have a C grade?
MisterBastahrd 4y ago
taylodl 4y ago
Oh good! So Florida will have plenty of money for hurricane cleanup and they won't have to ask for money from the rest of us!
- thesis 4y ago
  Which part of the US do you live in that doesn't have natural disasters?
  - taylodl 4y ago
    The Mid-Atlantic. In my lifetime we've had one tornado that leveled the downtown of a small town - which the state took care of. Meanwhile Florida has had multiple "once in a lifetime" super hurricanes and numerous small hurricanes hit it. All these rich people want to move there - they don't it like here where the winters get bitter cold? Great! Let them pay for it. I'm sick and tired of their politics and I'm sick and tired of thousands and thousands of dollars of my tax money going to pay for their folly.
    - thesis 4y ago
      Because you're sick of their politics they shouldn't get federal help? Geez. That seems pretty extreme. Forest fires in California, freezes in Texas, hurricanes in Florida, even hurricanes (Sandy) in the North East. Natural disasters happen in both (typically) democrat and republican states. Are you sick and tired of the government allowing us to eat fast food, smoke cigarettes, and drink alcohol too? After all a large percentage of your tax dollars are going towards medicare and health.
      - taylodl 4y ago
        You may recall several states from the South - all whom have received federal disaster aid - delayed the disaster aid funding for Super Storm Sandy. I wasn’t impacted by Sandy but I’ll never forget nor forgive what they did. To Hell with these people!
dbrueck 4y ago
Really pleased that the article referenced the 'Florida man' meme right off the bat!
resoluteteeth 4y ago
> Like Florida, Texas has warm weather and no state income tax. In fact, the majority of the top 10 states high-earners moved to are in the Sunbelt. And two others on the list—Tennessee and Nevada—also don’t have a state income tax. Both trends indicate that these high-earning migrants were looking for a more affordable cost of living. Only 4 out of 10 had no income tax, and there is no information on why people moved to these locations, so it is not clear if income tax was or was not a factor. > But the pandemic accelerated migration patterns that were already underway in the 2010s. The rise of remote work unshackled employees from the office, enabling them to move away from big cities to more affordable midsize cities. As of March 2022, nearly 5 million Americans have relocated owing to remote work, according to an Upwork survey. There is no information here on whether the high income people who moved to florida are working remotely in the sense of having an existing normal, full time job that they kept when they moved to Florida, so it is not clear whether or not remote work actually is relevant or not. In the case of florida it's quite possible that a lot of the people with household incomes of 200k+ moving there are actually wealthy retirees making substantial incomes off of investments rather than "remote workers" in the normal sense.
- jjtheblunt 4y ago
  > Texas has warm weather understatement in the extreme?
- MacsHeadroom 4y ago
  I moved to Florida last year to save millions on taxes. Everyone else I know who moved here revently did for the same reason.
  - cpursley 4y ago
    Did you consider Puerto Rico? They've got some awesome legal tax incentives.
  - ab_testing 4y ago
    Millions in taxes. Did you make billions last year??
BWStearns 4y ago
I'm pretty sure this is mostly a COVID accelerated thing where we got a few years worth of moving all at once. Wealthier banking folks from NYC realized they can soft-retire a bit early with working remote and save some money on their last couple years taxes while establishing better domicile arguments pre-retirement. I'm curious if we'll see a slowdown in the trend in the next couple years (if indeed we did just see X years of migration moved up thanks to COVID).
systemvoltage 4y ago
This kind of competition is good. It is a luxury for Americans to be able to see competition between massive states that resemble economies of many small nations. Not only wealthy Americans, but Florida has been seeing regular middle class influx as well, out of all, from California. IMO, from what I can tell, Florida has better policies that will be conducive to higher quality of life and ease of business in the future. It is improving at a rapid rate. As someone who lives in California, we have some homework to do across many areas. I'd want California to improve and become more competitive, especially in terms of regulations, crime and QoL. It is such a beautiful state. One can quote current statistics of this or that, but it is the rate of improvement/degeneration that's important. Instead, we spend too much time defending what's not working. More stats here that doesn't just gloss over with undertones of "rich moving to florida": https://www.floridadaily.com/people-from-new-york-california-propelling-floridas-growth-report-finds/ https://www.floridadaily.com/people-from-new-york-california...
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  I think it's disorienting, maybe straight harmful, to view this through the lens of consumption and competition. The choice of where to live is not primarily a market-based one for most people during most of their lives, it's setting the priorities wrong. A government should be oriented towards the needs of the people who live under and depend on it. Many people have effectively no choice to make in what state they live in, and their needs and preferences matter more than those of someone who doesn't even live there but might move there. The "competition for citizens" model doesn't really account for that in any way I can respect.
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    How the hell is competition between states harmful? Id argue that doing anything but having states compete for betterment of the society is harmful, if not straight out totalitarian. You cannot eliminate incentives from top-down. In a free society where interstate commerce is protected by the constitution, posing limits on incentives would be pretty much the death of this republic.
woodruffw 4y ago
More than anything else, I've been surprised by the number of cryptocurrency acquaintances I know who have uprooted and moved to Florida. They've all cited taxes and cheap housing as primary motivators when asked initially, but there's also a significant network effect: they mention it as being an area where the tech community is actually friendly to them. I don't particularly like cryptocurrencies, but I found that thought-provoking.
- rjbwork 4y ago
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    I didn't want to make too fine a point of it! But yes: plenty of states have been embarrassingly open to financial fraud in the form of cryptocurrency in the name of innovation, and Florida stands out even in that regard. One can't help but wonder whether Florida's political leadership has made the savvy (and cynical) decision to pump reactionary economic sentiment, as a leader for their own reactionary political sentiments.
  - dumpsterlid 4y ago
    Every single person I know that has moved to florida has made me think "hmm, I don't think I want to live in a place with people like that"
- exogeny 4y ago
  YMMV, but a very large percentage of people I know who have claimed that SF/NYC isn't "friendly" enough to tech have, upon further elucidation, zero emotional intelligence around gentrification and almost universally think of Uber and WeWork as success stories. This is to say, in case it's not clear, that being "friendly" just isn't enough for them; they want everyone around them to acknowledge just how great and special tech is. If you're not kissing their ass, you're not being friendly.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
twblalock 4y ago
Florida is probably going to be one of the worst-impacted states from climate change, in a lot of different ways, so this is an interesting choice.
- justforaskin 4y ago
  Maybe. But it depends on the time window. For example, it would seem to be unwise to build a multi-million dollar house just a few feet above sea level given the dire projections of sea level rise. However Obama’s new house is just that. So if you are only looking at a time horizon of 60 years, Florida is in a pretty good spot.
  - racl101 4y ago
    A lot of rich folks are older so maybe for them it's not bad. When it gets dire they got money they'll just up and leave.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  That was my immediate thought. Why would anyone permanently relocate to an area just a few feet above sea level in 2022?
  - kcplate 4y ago
    Its a misnomer to believe that “Florida is only a few feet above sea level”. Immediate costal/beach areas of course are, but most of Florida is well above sea level. Most of the people moving to Florida are not wealthy, but middle class folk, and are not buying in the coastal areas. They buy far enough inland that sea level rise if it happens at all to a danger level will have zero affect on anything but future beach quality. Might make the distance to the beach a mile or two shorter. The rich who are buying coastal properties aren’t buying with 2100 in mind, they are buying with 2022 in mind.
- danans 4y ago
  On the time scales most people think in, it's probably not a big consideration for them personally. The money they save on housing in the meantime perhaps can buy their descendants property in less climate-change-threatened places. Building long term habitations in low lying coastal areas (absent massive engineering to prevent flooding like the Netherlands has done) seems dubious though.
bell-cot 4y ago
> "The elevation of the area averages at around 6 ft (1.8 m)[39] above sea level in most neighborhoods, especially near the coast." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami ) Wikipedia goes on to note that the highest elevation in Miami is ~42 feet above sea level. Doesn't sound like the next few counties north (along the coast) are in much better shape. Meanwhile, the Fortune article seems to say that the 'smartest' and wealthiest of the migrants are flocking to that part of Florida...
- dmix 4y ago
  Wealthy people are probaly going to be the least likely to be affected by climate change. From wikipedia: > Real estate prices in Miami already reflect the increase in prices for real estate at a higher elevation within the city compared to real estate at a lower elevation It's usually the existing poorer population that already owns property next to low lying areas next to the water that will get caught holding the bag when asset prices drop. Besides FL migrants are typically older people retiring, not making longer-term plans.
- shrubble 4y ago
  They are smart enough to buy insurance, perhaps :-)
- Ferrotin 4y ago
  People in other countries already buy 99 year leases on property.
- _nalply 4y ago
  The first I thought was: Let's enjoy Florida as long as it exists then abandon it.
thieving_magpie 4y ago
Just an anecdote but where I live we've had a huge influx of ex-Floridians moving in. They are all over this town. I was thinking there was an exodus going on. There's even a name for all the people that move to Florida from northern states and realize they don't care for it: Halfbacks (halfway back to New York, MA, anywhere NE).
- TMWNN 4y ago
  They don't usually actually return to the northeast, right? Usually to some place like North Carolina?
  - thieving_magpie 4y ago
    Correct. They are "halfway back" to New York.
hk1337 4y ago
A new class of "Florida Man" is coming.
unethical_ban 4y ago
Meanwhile, part of me is thinking I should go to Ohio, Maine or Pennsylvania to escape the water wars that will kick off in a few decades in the South, unless we build desalination plants on the Gulf Coast.
yardie 4y ago
Local Miamian chiming in. I can tell you the natives are absolutely panicking. Family and social groups are being disrupted because property and rental prices have outpaced income by large margins. There wasn't much in Miami prior to COVID except tourism and service industry jobs. These are some of the lowest paying vocations in this country. The city and county are facing an affordability crisis. And contrary to popular belief Miami is losing population because of the affordability crisis. For every cryptobro that moves here, a family of 4 migrates to Orlando or further north. It's not all bad, though. New faces are highly receptive to making new friends and follow through. Traditional LatAm families are very insular and skeptical to newcomers. Local politicians are dynastic and blatantly corrupt. They don't have the same name recognition with new, younger voters so some are finding it harder to skate on winning by a few dozen votes. The Downtown/Brickell area is opening more new schools. Ironic the schoolboard is downtown but there were no neighborhood schools except a few highly selective magnet schools. All these new condos and apartments downtown have families scrambling to enroll nearby and finding out none were planned. So glad that is being fixed.
- miamibre 4y ago
  Same, I moved to Miami in 2019 from Puerto Rico because I wanted to keep speaking Spanish and I had a circle of friends to help me out. Since then housing prices have been absolutely bananas, I was fortunate to buy a house relatively cheap in Oct 2021 but now the same houses are going for $100k+ more what I paid. If you want to buy anything that is 2 bedroom you better be prepared to pay +300k starting price and probably 20% down + HOA fee and increasing interest rates are going for %5+. Yet houses are flying off the market, mostly due to institutional investors putting 100% down in cash so you can't compete or have a total of one weekend to make an offer. So far this year alone 3 people I know have moved out of Miami all due to housing affordibility. One moved to Tampa (which used to be pricier than Miami), another to South Carolina, and another to Ft Lauderdale. My wife wants us to stay here to raise kids but whenever she talks about buying a new house I get queesy thinking how expensive it's going to be to get a large enough place. I love the Hollywood / Ft Luaderdale area but it's only a matter of time that prices catch up.
- shaburn 4y ago
  Why should they panic? Economic opportunity is being brought in and it is a pro-building area so truly getting priced out as one would in San Francisco or Hong Kong is highly improbable. Also, migration seems so popular in the tech community until it is into one's own.
shaburn 4y ago
California, Chicago, and New York have killed the golden goose. Florida's win. There is no other reasonable explanation than bad policy
bryanrasmussen 4y ago
from 2021 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/climate/miami-sea-level-rise.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/climate/miami-sea-level-r... Miami Says It Can Adapt to Rising Seas. Not Everyone Is Convinced. Officials have a new plan to manage rising water. Succeed or fail, it will very likely become a case study for other cities facing climate threats. I realize the U.S is all about taking care of the wealthy, but maybe these people aren't wealthy - just rich. In which case hey you can always allow a few of the rich to lose their shirts as long as the class as a whole is protected. requisite Chris Rock video on difference between rich and wealth https://youtu.be/bZWeFtgEAEk?t=41 https://youtu.be/bZWeFtgEAEk?t=41
tonymet 4y ago
blaming taxes is a dodge. it’s about quality of life and ideological climate . then remote work freed people to relocate . The florida leadership sent a strong signal during and since covid that they will protect civil liberties. people are expecting the next “crisis” to add more restrictions it’s a defensive measure to preserve your way of life
- alphabettsy 4y ago
  > The florida leadership sent a strong signal during and since covid that they will protect civil liberties. people are expecting the next “crisis” to add more restrictions That’s one way to look at it. Another way is that they put religious dogma over civil liberties and personal freedom over community.
  - patrick451 4y ago
    So cities that shut down communal activities like bars, football, restaurants and concerts, effectively forbidding people from interacting with each, prioritized community? That's such an odd take. Either way, the influx of people moving to Florida would seem to indicate that a lot of people either agree with their decision or don't really care.
- Geeek 4y ago
  very specific civil liberties.
pgodzin 4y ago
Specifically at a time when markets were at all-time highs, and everyone had a ton of gains they didn't want to pay taxes on. We'll see what the migration patterns look like during a downturn after everyone else has been priced out because not enough has been built to support the new demand.
RickJWagner 4y ago
Hard to see how Climate Change would make Florida a good long-term bet.

53 points by shaburn 4y ago

Curious how this scales; I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't. People want quality public infra, but don't want to pay taxes. Sounds like a losing battle to me. What usually happens is taxes are shoved into other areas of your life (property, sales).

ch4s3 4y ago
Florida does indeed lean on property and sales taxes. You can even build good infrastructure that way.
- cool_dude85 4y ago
  >You can even build good infrastructure that way. Yeah, but Florida doesn't, really.
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    I don't live there, and don't really have a particular ax to grind here but it looks like Miami is building a lot of flood control infrastructure pretty quickly.
    - kelnos 4y ago
      I wouldn't be surprised if they're leveraging federal funds for that, or at least for a big part of it.
      - ch4s3 4y ago
        It looks like a lot of those projects are split in funding between the state and federal government for initial build and the counties are issuing bonds to fund maintenance.
    - yardie 4y ago
      I live here. Miami is not building a lot of flood control infrastructure. Just a few diesel water pumps in tonier parts of town to keep the king tides at bay. The lifted truck/SUV is almost a requirement in the long term. After watching a row of cards flood out on our main street, Biscayne, you want something that drives high and dry.
      - ch4s3 4y ago
        It seems like there's a bunch of coastline restoration and mangrove planting happening as well. Has that not started in earnest?
        yardie 4y ago
        Miami Beach is making a valiant attempt. That city has been working on massive climate change projects for some time. We’ll see if it pays off. Miami is a basket case. The city commission held a vote to remove mangroves from the park because they were blocking the view. LOL. Just massive political incompetence.
        ch4s3 4y ago
        A rising tide drowns all cooks
    - cool_dude85 4y ago
      The flood control infrastructure in Miami Beach is to keep the plates spinning a little while longer. Long term, it's underwater.
      - ch4s3 4y ago
        I don't see why it couldn't be protected like Amsterdam which is ~6.5' below sea level. Miami for trade and finance purposes is the Amsterdam of the Caribbean and northern chunk of South America and Central America.
        cool_dude85 4y ago
        Amsterdam has the famous dykes, but Miami is built on limestone so sea walls do not work.
        ch4s3 4y ago
        Yeah I didn't mean using the exact same approach. They'll probably have to do things like building artificial reefs, planting mangroves, raising buildings/roads, and maybe something like Tokyo's giant cisterns. In the end it may not work but it seems like it's worth trying for a few decades.
  - mensetmanusman 4y ago
    Roads are nice in my experience
    - goostavos 4y ago
      The roads in Florida are freaking fantastic and pristine almost everywhere. I moved to Seattle ~5 years ago and I still can't get over the fact that the roads are pot holed pieces of crap in a constant state of disrepair. We can't even get white divider lines painted reliably in the downtown core. I don't know where all the tax money goes. However, the downside of those glorious Florida roads is that, well, you need them at all. Everything is sooooooo spread out and flat. I forget until I go back and visit just how far away everything is from everything else. Going to something "just up the road" is a 15-20 minute drive.
      - jrs235 4y ago
        The roads in Florida are nice because they don't go through the freeze thaw cycle in winter.
        pandaman 4y ago
        Why they are not nice in California then?
        ch4s3 4y ago
        One imagines there are differences in the abilities of various governments to deliver projects. I’ve read that most of California’s projects go to a handful of contractors with poor records.
        pandaman 4y ago
        So could it be the reason roads are nice in Florida is not the lack of winter freeze but the ability of its government to govern?
fennecfoxen 4y ago
You know what Florida has besides taxes? User fees. You can take a brand-new highway here and it'll be a toll road, which means you're the one paying for it, not unrelated taxpayers around the state. You can even finance the construction with private-public partnerships tied to the specific project's success. And because people pay for this infrastructure, it discourages frivolous uses, like the induced demand of overbuilding in the exurbs.
- cortesoft 4y ago
  It also means poor people can’t use the infrastructure
  - mandmandam 4y ago
    That was likely used as a selling point :/
- kelnos 4y ago
  That's just a regressive tax that disproportionately hurts lower-income folks the most. I'm so tired of this "I got mine, so fuck you" attitude many people have. If you're wealthy, you probably got there via inheritance, luck, or on the backs and shoulders of the hard work of others. And yet "I won't do my part to pay for basic infrastructure where I live" is the attitude.
  - fennecfoxen 4y ago
    If that’s a regressive tax on the poor, then so are “groceries” and “housing”.
    - imustbeevil 4y ago
      Yes, increasing costs of necessities is regressive. Charging everyone the same fee costs poor people a larger percentage of their income. > A regressive tax is a tax applied uniformly, taking a larger percentage of income from low-income earners than from high-income earners.
_skel 4y ago
> People want quality public infra, but don't want to pay taxes. Sounds like a losing battle to me. A lot of people don't really want quality public infra. If they can pay for their own needs themselves, in their gated communities etc., they would rather do that than pay taxes. The people described in this article are wealthy. They want quality private infra.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  > If they can pay for their own needs themselves, in their gated communities etc. That kind of sounds like California. Crime is so rampant that when I was searching for apartments, these large complexes resemble castles. Heavily fortified and there is a courtyard inside where children can play and families can hang out.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    Not sure where in CA you were looking, but I very rarely see anything like that in SF or the bay area (outside of weird enclaves like Atherton, but I wouldn't go there if you paid me). Courtyards, sure, but I think you're imagining a weird, nefarious spin to them when there isn't any.
    - systemvoltage 4y ago
      In SF Bay Area. East bay (Oakland), South bay (Fremont, SJC) and San Mateo Area. When I was searching for a place, basically every single apartment complex felt like a castle. Not being nefarious, have no interest in it. You’re more than welcome to check for yourself.
  - _skel 4y ago
    Those courtyard-style apartments don't exist because of crime. They exist because it's nice to have a courtyard. Most apartments in the Bay Area have no outdoor space other than a balcony or a small piece of land on the ground floor about the size of the balconies above. Many don't even have that.
__derek__ 4y ago
It could be interesting to look at tax burden including HOA fees. With enough HNW residents, gated communities can support good private infrastructure.
al_mandi 4y ago
It's not mutually exclusive. Tax money is being wasted left and right, people don't want to pay even more taxes to account for the incompetence that's happening.
trothamel 4y ago
The American Society of Civil Engineers rates Florida's infrastructure as a C. Compare that to California at a C-, New York at C, and America as a whole at C-. https://infrastructurereportcard.org/state-by-state-infrastructure/ https://infrastructurereportcard.org/state-by-state-infrastr... They seem to be a lobby group for more infrastructure investment, but they don't see Florida as worse than other states.
- arberx 4y ago
  How useful of a metric is this if, literally, a majority of states have a C grade?

MisterBastahrd 4y ago

taylodl 4y ago

Oh good! So Florida will have plenty of money for hurricane cleanup and they won't have to ask for money from the rest of us!

thesis 4y ago
Which part of the US do you live in that doesn't have natural disasters?
- taylodl 4y ago
  The Mid-Atlantic. In my lifetime we've had one tornado that leveled the downtown of a small town - which the state took care of. Meanwhile Florida has had multiple "once in a lifetime" super hurricanes and numerous small hurricanes hit it. All these rich people want to move there - they don't it like here where the winters get bitter cold? Great! Let them pay for it. I'm sick and tired of their politics and I'm sick and tired of thousands and thousands of dollars of my tax money going to pay for their folly.
  - thesis 4y ago
    Because you're sick of their politics they shouldn't get federal help? Geez. That seems pretty extreme. Forest fires in California, freezes in Texas, hurricanes in Florida, even hurricanes (Sandy) in the North East. Natural disasters happen in both (typically) democrat and republican states. Are you sick and tired of the government allowing us to eat fast food, smoke cigarettes, and drink alcohol too? After all a large percentage of your tax dollars are going towards medicare and health.
    - taylodl 4y ago
      You may recall several states from the South - all whom have received federal disaster aid - delayed the disaster aid funding for Super Storm Sandy. I wasn’t impacted by Sandy but I’ll never forget nor forgive what they did. To Hell with these people!

dbrueck 4y ago

Really pleased that the article referenced the 'Florida man' meme right off the bat!

resoluteteeth 4y ago

> Like Florida, Texas has warm weather and no state income tax. In fact, the majority of the top 10 states high-earners moved to are in the Sunbelt. And two others on the list—Tennessee and Nevada—also don’t have a state income tax. Both trends indicate that these high-earning migrants were looking for a more affordable cost of living. Only 4 out of 10 had no income tax, and there is no information on why people moved to these locations, so it is not clear if income tax was or was not a factor. > But the pandemic accelerated migration patterns that were already underway in the 2010s. The rise of remote work unshackled employees from the office, enabling them to move away from big cities to more affordable midsize cities. As of March 2022, nearly 5 million Americans have relocated owing to remote work, according to an Upwork survey. There is no information here on whether the high income people who moved to florida are working remotely in the sense of having an existing normal, full time job that they kept when they moved to Florida, so it is not clear whether or not remote work actually is relevant or not. In the case of florida it's quite possible that a lot of the people with household incomes of 200k+ moving there are actually wealthy retirees making substantial incomes off of investments rather than "remote workers" in the normal sense.

jjtheblunt 4y ago
> Texas has warm weather understatement in the extreme?
MacsHeadroom 4y ago
I moved to Florida last year to save millions on taxes. Everyone else I know who moved here revently did for the same reason.
- cpursley 4y ago
  Did you consider Puerto Rico? They've got some awesome legal tax incentives.
- ab_testing 4y ago
  Millions in taxes. Did you make billions last year??

BWStearns 4y ago

I'm pretty sure this is mostly a COVID accelerated thing where we got a few years worth of moving all at once. Wealthier banking folks from NYC realized they can soft-retire a bit early with working remote and save some money on their last couple years taxes while establishing better domicile arguments pre-retirement. I'm curious if we'll see a slowdown in the trend in the next couple years (if indeed we did just see X years of migration moved up thanks to COVID).

systemvoltage 4y ago

This kind of competition is good. It is a luxury for Americans to be able to see competition between massive states that resemble economies of many small nations. Not only wealthy Americans, but Florida has been seeing regular middle class influx as well, out of all, from California. IMO, from what I can tell, Florida has better policies that will be conducive to higher quality of life and ease of business in the future. It is improving at a rapid rate. As someone who lives in California, we have some homework to do across many areas. I'd want California to improve and become more competitive, especially in terms of regulations, crime and QoL. It is such a beautiful state. One can quote current statistics of this or that, but it is the rate of improvement/degeneration that's important. Instead, we spend too much time defending what's not working. More stats here that doesn't just gloss over with undertones of "rich moving to florida": https://www.floridadaily.com/people-from-new-york-california-propelling-floridas-growth-report-finds/ https://www.floridadaily.com/people-from-new-york-california...

giraffe_lady 4y ago
I think it's disorienting, maybe straight harmful, to view this through the lens of consumption and competition. The choice of where to live is not primarily a market-based one for most people during most of their lives, it's setting the priorities wrong. A government should be oriented towards the needs of the people who live under and depend on it. Many people have effectively no choice to make in what state they live in, and their needs and preferences matter more than those of someone who doesn't even live there but might move there. The "competition for citizens" model doesn't really account for that in any way I can respect.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  How the hell is competition between states harmful? Id argue that doing anything but having states compete for betterment of the society is harmful, if not straight out totalitarian. You cannot eliminate incentives from top-down. In a free society where interstate commerce is protected by the constitution, posing limits on incentives would be pretty much the death of this republic.

woodruffw 4y ago

More than anything else, I've been surprised by the number of cryptocurrency acquaintances I know who have uprooted and moved to Florida. They've all cited taxes and cheap housing as primary motivators when asked initially, but there's also a significant network effect: they mention it as being an area where the tech community is actually friendly to them. I don't particularly like cryptocurrencies, but I found that thought-provoking.

rjbwork 4y ago
- woodruffw 4y ago
  I didn't want to make too fine a point of it! But yes: plenty of states have been embarrassingly open to financial fraud in the form of cryptocurrency in the name of innovation, and Florida stands out even in that regard. One can't help but wonder whether Florida's political leadership has made the savvy (and cynical) decision to pump reactionary economic sentiment, as a leader for their own reactionary political sentiments.
- dumpsterlid 4y ago
  Every single person I know that has moved to florida has made me think "hmm, I don't think I want to live in a place with people like that"
exogeny 4y ago
YMMV, but a very large percentage of people I know who have claimed that SF/NYC isn't "friendly" enough to tech have, upon further elucidation, zero emotional intelligence around gentrification and almost universally think of Uber and WeWork as success stories. This is to say, in case it's not clear, that being "friendly" just isn't enough for them; they want everyone around them to acknowledge just how great and special tech is. If you're not kissing their ass, you're not being friendly.
- woodruffw 4y ago

twblalock 4y ago

Florida is probably going to be one of the worst-impacted states from climate change, in a lot of different ways, so this is an interesting choice.

justforaskin 4y ago
Maybe. But it depends on the time window. For example, it would seem to be unwise to build a multi-million dollar house just a few feet above sea level given the dire projections of sea level rise. However Obama’s new house is just that. So if you are only looking at a time horizon of 60 years, Florida is in a pretty good spot.
- racl101 4y ago
  A lot of rich folks are older so maybe for them it's not bad. When it gets dire they got money they'll just up and leave.
TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
That was my immediate thought. Why would anyone permanently relocate to an area just a few feet above sea level in 2022?
- kcplate 4y ago
  Its a misnomer to believe that “Florida is only a few feet above sea level”. Immediate costal/beach areas of course are, but most of Florida is well above sea level. Most of the people moving to Florida are not wealthy, but middle class folk, and are not buying in the coastal areas. They buy far enough inland that sea level rise if it happens at all to a danger level will have zero affect on anything but future beach quality. Might make the distance to the beach a mile or two shorter. The rich who are buying coastal properties aren’t buying with 2100 in mind, they are buying with 2022 in mind.
danans 4y ago
On the time scales most people think in, it's probably not a big consideration for them personally. The money they save on housing in the meantime perhaps can buy their descendants property in less climate-change-threatened places. Building long term habitations in low lying coastal areas (absent massive engineering to prevent flooding like the Netherlands has done) seems dubious though.

bell-cot 4y ago

> "The elevation of the area averages at around 6 ft (1.8 m)[39] above sea level in most neighborhoods, especially near the coast." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami ) Wikipedia goes on to note that the highest elevation in Miami is ~42 feet above sea level. Doesn't sound like the next few counties north (along the coast) are in much better shape. Meanwhile, the Fortune article seems to say that the 'smartest' and wealthiest of the migrants are flocking to that part of Florida...

dmix 4y ago
Wealthy people are probaly going to be the least likely to be affected by climate change. From wikipedia: > Real estate prices in Miami already reflect the increase in prices for real estate at a higher elevation within the city compared to real estate at a lower elevation It's usually the existing poorer population that already owns property next to low lying areas next to the water that will get caught holding the bag when asset prices drop. Besides FL migrants are typically older people retiring, not making longer-term plans.
shrubble 4y ago
They are smart enough to buy insurance, perhaps :-)
Ferrotin 4y ago
People in other countries already buy 99 year leases on property.
_nalply 4y ago
The first I thought was: Let's enjoy Florida as long as it exists then abandon it.

thieving_magpie 4y ago

Just an anecdote but where I live we've had a huge influx of ex-Floridians moving in. They are all over this town. I was thinking there was an exodus going on. There's even a name for all the people that move to Florida from northern states and realize they don't care for it: Halfbacks (halfway back to New York, MA, anywhere NE).

TMWNN 4y ago
They don't usually actually return to the northeast, right? Usually to some place like North Carolina?
- thieving_magpie 4y ago
  Correct. They are "halfway back" to New York.

hk1337 4y ago

A new class of "Florida Man" is coming.

unethical_ban 4y ago

Meanwhile, part of me is thinking I should go to Ohio, Maine or Pennsylvania to escape the water wars that will kick off in a few decades in the South, unless we build desalination plants on the Gulf Coast.

yardie 4y ago

Local Miamian chiming in. I can tell you the natives are absolutely panicking. Family and social groups are being disrupted because property and rental prices have outpaced income by large margins. There wasn't much in Miami prior to COVID except tourism and service industry jobs. These are some of the lowest paying vocations in this country. The city and county are facing an affordability crisis. And contrary to popular belief Miami is losing population because of the affordability crisis. For every cryptobro that moves here, a family of 4 migrates to Orlando or further north. It's not all bad, though. New faces are highly receptive to making new friends and follow through. Traditional LatAm families are very insular and skeptical to newcomers. Local politicians are dynastic and blatantly corrupt. They don't have the same name recognition with new, younger voters so some are finding it harder to skate on winning by a few dozen votes. The Downtown/Brickell area is opening more new schools. Ironic the schoolboard is downtown but there were no neighborhood schools except a few highly selective magnet schools. All these new condos and apartments downtown have families scrambling to enroll nearby and finding out none were planned. So glad that is being fixed.

miamibre 4y ago
Same, I moved to Miami in 2019 from Puerto Rico because I wanted to keep speaking Spanish and I had a circle of friends to help me out. Since then housing prices have been absolutely bananas, I was fortunate to buy a house relatively cheap in Oct 2021 but now the same houses are going for $100k+ more what I paid. If you want to buy anything that is 2 bedroom you better be prepared to pay +300k starting price and probably 20% down + HOA fee and increasing interest rates are going for %5+. Yet houses are flying off the market, mostly due to institutional investors putting 100% down in cash so you can't compete or have a total of one weekend to make an offer. So far this year alone 3 people I know have moved out of Miami all due to housing affordibility. One moved to Tampa (which used to be pricier than Miami), another to South Carolina, and another to Ft Lauderdale. My wife wants us to stay here to raise kids but whenever she talks about buying a new house I get queesy thinking how expensive it's going to be to get a large enough place. I love the Hollywood / Ft Luaderdale area but it's only a matter of time that prices catch up.
shaburn 4y ago
Why should they panic? Economic opportunity is being brought in and it is a pro-building area so truly getting priced out as one would in San Francisco or Hong Kong is highly improbable. Also, migration seems so popular in the tech community until it is into one's own.

shaburn 4y ago

California, Chicago, and New York have killed the golden goose. Florida's win. There is no other reasonable explanation than bad policy

bryanrasmussen 4y ago

from 2021 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/climate/miami-sea-level-rise.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/climate/miami-sea-level-r... Miami Says It Can Adapt to Rising Seas. Not Everyone Is Convinced. Officials have a new plan to manage rising water. Succeed or fail, it will very likely become a case study for other cities facing climate threats. I realize the U.S is all about taking care of the wealthy, but maybe these people aren't wealthy - just rich. In which case hey you can always allow a few of the rich to lose their shirts as long as the class as a whole is protected. requisite Chris Rock video on difference between rich and wealth https://youtu.be/bZWeFtgEAEk?t=41 https://youtu.be/bZWeFtgEAEk?t=41

tonymet 4y ago

blaming taxes is a dodge. it’s about quality of life and ideological climate . then remote work freed people to relocate . The florida leadership sent a strong signal during and since covid that they will protect civil liberties. people are expecting the next “crisis” to add more restrictions it’s a defensive measure to preserve your way of life

alphabettsy 4y ago
> The florida leadership sent a strong signal during and since covid that they will protect civil liberties. people are expecting the next “crisis” to add more restrictions That’s one way to look at it. Another way is that they put religious dogma over civil liberties and personal freedom over community.
- patrick451 4y ago
  So cities that shut down communal activities like bars, football, restaurants and concerts, effectively forbidding people from interacting with each, prioritized community? That's such an odd take. Either way, the influx of people moving to Florida would seem to indicate that a lot of people either agree with their decision or don't really care.
Geeek 4y ago
very specific civil liberties.

pgodzin 4y ago

Specifically at a time when markets were at all-time highs, and everyone had a ton of gains they didn't want to pay taxes on. We'll see what the migration patterns look like during a downturn after everyone else has been priced out because not enough has been built to support the new demand.

RickJWagner 4y ago

Hard to see how Climate Change would make Florida a good long-term bet.