Everybody wants to live in Florida – anywhere but Miami

If we believe our own publicity, Miami-Dade is booming as people from across the nation rush to live here and our population soars. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your views, it just ain’t so.

The fact is, the county’s population is nearly 15,000 people smaller – yes, smaller – than it was just after the start of the pandemic four years ago.

That’s what US census numbers released last week show.

Don’t be misled by the census bureau’s news release that Florida is absolutely booming in population growth, with four of the nation’s five fastest-growing metropolitan areas last year being in the state. 

That report is true – but it doesn’t mention Miami-Dade, which trails far behind the rest of the state’s 14 metropolitan areas in population flows.

Since April 1, 2020, of Florida’s 67 counties, 60 have added people as residents from the rest of the nation flock to the state. The seven losers were five small and poor counties in North Florida, our neighbor Monroe County (the Florida Keys), and – surprise – Miami-Dade.

In fact, during the highly touted inflow to Miami of the very wealthy and the financial, technological and law firm explosion that accompanied them during the pandemic, our population fell as they arrived. A lot of money came in, a lot of workers flowed out.

These aren’t just interesting facts. The implications need careful business and government attention.

Elected officials seem to be focused on meeting demands that a rapidly growing population is going to create. Those plans to keep building to meet demand should get a second look through the lens of what is really happening. Leaders might focus more on serving the needs of people who are already here and are leaving. 

Developers might do the same. Are we building faster than need is growing? Are we expanding to serve customers who are flowing in more slowly than our hype of growth claims?

It’s true that people are flowing into Miami-Dade in big numbers from other nations, both the wealthy and the poor – but fewer in the middle. Meanwhile, we lose people to the rest of this nation faster than we are gaining from abroad, and those who are leaving are neither the very wealthy nor the very poor – they are the middle class.

This census report doesn’t tell us the economics of population flows, but past reports show people leaving Miami-Dade to live in areas where living costs are lower, not higher.

Take a closer look at what we have just learned from the census.

From April 1, 2020, to July 1, 2023, our natural population growth was very real. We had 12,406 more births than deaths in Miami-Dade County.

During that period we also gained markedly from abroad: 107,785 more people from abroad came to Miami-Dade than moved abroad from here. That is the global population boom we all know about.

But, at the same time, 134,382 more people left Miami-Dade for the rest of the United States than arrived from the rest of the nation. That is the figure that needs careful attention as we assess our economic and policy climate.

Why do people choose to leave us? Everyplace loses residents to other areas, just as every area gains some from elsewhere. But we are far out of balance, as the number prove. Everybody in the nation wants to move to Florida – just not to Miami.

Take The Villages in West Central Florida. It’s a retirement haven. In the past year, its population grew 4.7%, faster than anywhere in the US. Pretty clearly, it’s been a long time since Miami was a retirement area for those who can’t afford high-priced comfort. 

But let’s look at other big Florida cities, none of which is a one-trick retirement pony. Orlando and Tampa each grew by more than 50,000 residents from July 1, 2022, to July 1, 2023. Even Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach grew faster than we did. 

As earlier census numbers revealed a year ago, this phenomenon of Miami’s population outflow to the rest of this state and nation did not begin with the pandemic. Those numbers showed this county’s residents moving to other US metropolitan areas from 2016 to 2020 in far greater numbers than were moving here, with the noted exception of New York City, from which people were flowing here in a vast river. 

Taken together with the new numbers showing a pandemic era Miami-Dade population loss that has not been regained, the causes seem clear: those who are moving here from the US could afford to live anywhere they chose, and those who are moving out cannot afford to live in Miami.

It is noteworthy that billionaires want to be here. We certainly applaud that.

On the other hand, it is highly troubling that qualified people who actually work here leave in greater numbers than they can be replaced. 

It’s bad for society that people who make Miami function feel that they have to go. Housing costs rise by nearly double digits in a year and mobility that they need to reach work seems to shrink annually. The cost of living rises here far faster than almost anywhere else. 

The tipping point creates an outflow of productive people who we are not replacing. That’s the flow we must reverse.