True to form, Hizzoner took to Twitter earlier this week to declare, "Miami Ranks #1 Best City in the U.S. to Live & Work!”
"The Magic City will continue to focus on quality of life, safety, and economic freedom to ensure a #MiamiForEveryone & #MiamiForever," Suarez raved, linking to a CNBC story.
It felt like a redemptive moment for all of us here in the Magic City — the comforting knowledge that at last, someone, somewhere, had the gumption to look past the traffic, the housing-affordability crisis, the perennial flooding problems, and give our city its due as a pillar of municipal excellence.
The back-patting was in full swing until we took the time to read the CNBC story linked by Suarez, which was based on a survey of expats asked about their experience living and working abroad.
As most of us are aware, expats, or expatriates, are foreigners who left their native countries to take up residence elsewhere. A sizable demographic to be sure, but also a limited one.
What's more, only two U.S. cities made the survey's global list: New York and Miami.
So, stated more accurately, Suarez's boast might read: "Miami Ranks Marginally Better Than New York City in Expat Poll."
The poll was conducted by InterNations, an online expat network, which collected responses from nearly 12,000 expatriates of 177 different nationalities, residing all around the globe.
Fifty cities were included in the rankings, with Miami clocking in at number 12 and NYC not far behind at number 16.
"For a city to be featured in the ranking, a sample size of at least 50 survey participants was required. In 2022, 50 cities met this requirement," InterNations explains in its methodology section.
The top five cities overall? Valencia, Dubai, Mexico City, Lisbon, and Madrid.
Mayors on the Iberian peninsula must be having a field day with this data.
To be fair, CNBC cagily teased its story with the headline, "Workers around the world say this is the best U.S. city for expats."
One had to actually read the story to discover that we were number one of...two.
Suarez’s office has not responded to a request for comment via email and by phone.Miami Ranks #1 Best City in the U.S. to Live & Work!
— Mayor Francis Suarez (@FrancisSuarez) December 13, 2022
The Magic City will continue to focus on quality of life, safety, and economic freedom to ensure a #MiamiForEveryone & #MiamiForever https://t.co/QoztKGuDJo
The survey compiled responses from expatriates into categories such as quality of life, ease of settling in, working abroad, personal finance, and "expat essentials." The scores for each category were averaged out to make the overall rankings.
Miami fared fairly well on ease of settling in — ranking tenth on the list. When it came to overall quality of life, however, the Magic City plummeted to 38th.
For what it's worth, Miami ranked 137th out of 150 cities in U.S. News & World Report's "Best Places to Live in the U.S." rankings for 2022-23. We tallied a solid quality-of-life score but ranked poorly in the value section, largely owing to the out-of-control rise in housing prices.
A RealtyHop report released in August indicated that Miami had the most severe housing affordability crisis in the nation, when factoring in home prices relative to median income.
By early 2022, rent in the Miami metropolitan area had increased by 57 percent year over year, according to data from Realtor.com.
