Some interesting statistics on Miami's quality of life (Jacksonville, Hialeah: middle-class, crime rates)

[illini84]

How Miami's quality of life stacks up against the nation's 100 largest cities:
http://www.downstate.edu/urbansoc_healthdata/Urban%20Center%20Website/web%20design2/pdf%20files/report4pdfs/urbanreport4.pdf (broken link)

92nd of 100 in Percent of Total Population Living in a High Poverty Neighborhood (14.7%)

87th of 100 in Percent of Poor Population Living in a High Poverty Neighborhood (27.8%)

100th of 100 in Percent of Population Age 25 and Over with No High School Diploma (48.4%)

99th of 100 in Percent of Population Age 25 and Over with Any College Attendance (30.7% )

92nd of 100 in Unemployment Rates (11.1%)

91st of 100 in Violent Crime Rates Per 100,000 People (1,551)

100th of 100 in Social Deprivation Index [considers poverty, per capita income, education,
unemployment, limited English proficiency, and violent crime measures] (82)

So, of seven quality of life indicators, Miami was the absolute worst in two categories and damn near last in all of the rest. Just something I found interesting, yet unsurprising.

[diddiyo]

Mh, the link doesn't work for me.

But I guess you're right... not really a surprise anymore.

[illini84]

Fixed the link...sorry about that.

[noland123]

I don't put trust into statistics because for one if that is just the City of Miami and not Miami-Dade it really doesn't give a true picture of the whole area. The City of Miami is only 36 square miles with a population of 400,000 versus Miami -Dade with a population 2.5 million.
A good example of that is here in Jacksonville,before consolidation in 1968 this area I would have considered the poorest city in the country and even today would consider the inner-city the poorest but the consolidation of city\county encompasses many wealthy and middle-class neighborhoods and other well-to-do surrounding counties that are considered as part of its economy. This brings its quality of life rating up substantially.

The only way these staististical inferences change is if the city has a mindset of going urban by people moving in from the suburbs to the Downtown core or they consolidate the the way Jacksonville did.

[blackklight]

everyone knows that already noland123, say, why do you post here? you live in jacksonville.

[noland123]

Because I have the right to post here Blacklight, just like you would have here in Jacksonville. I know Miami better than I know my own city and have more of a passion for Miami than my own city.

I was pointing out that statistics can be very misleading and used Jacksonville as an example.

[illini84]

The report says that the cities and their suburbs were included. So, the statistics include most or all of metropolitan Miami. This is particularly disappointing because while we all know that the city of Miami has a poor quality of life, apparently the entire metro area does too...

[compelled to reply]

Originally Posted by illini84

The report says that the cities and their suburbs were included. So, the statistics include most or all of metropolitan Miami.

That's impossible because Palm Beach and Broward County have always had education and income levels near to above the national average to this day (combined about 3 million, majority of metro population), and Dade County as a whole does not have a sub 50% high school education level. I didn't see anything clearly indicating their methodology. It looks like when they said "suburbs" they were only including Hialeah...but they didn't reference their research but it looks like it's based off of the census data for Miami (city limits) and Hialeah. And Miami-Dade County as a whole has a 3.8% unemployment rate as of now and that's up...

American FactFinder

Start from here.

[kevinkagy]

That doesn't really show an accurate example of Miami as a whole. The actual city of Miami is too small in comparison to the county as a whole, which is what everyone calls "Miami" anyways.

[illini84]

A little digging shows that the Miami data was based on "32 city and suburban areas" in the metro area, so it's not just the city of Miami and Hialeah--it's the Miami metro area like I said before. Here's the data sheet--it's based upon 2000 U.S. Census Data and the FBI: http://www.downstate.edu/urbansoc_healthdata/Urban%20Center%20Website/web%20design2/profilePDFs/Miami.pdf (broken link)