Why 150,000 New Yorkers Fled to Florida: Taxes, Crime, and the Search for Sunshine

New Yorkers have always been proud of their city grit, but lately, that pride’s been packing its bags and heading south. More than 150,000 former Big Apple residents have traded skyscrapers for palm trees, according to a fresh Citizens Budget Commission study. Between 2018 and 2022, the migration from New York to Florida left the city with a net loss of over 100,000 people—and nearly $14 billion in income. Now, that’s not just a snowbird trend, that’s an income blizzard.

What’s fueling this steady exodus? A cocktail of pandemic aftershocks, rising homelessness, and economic headaches. Folks like Alex Taub, who co-founded the entertainment tech company Goblintown, spelled it out: for the price of a cramped two-bedroom in NYC, you could be lounging in a five-bedroom Florida home, pool and backyard included. Even Taub, a lifelong New Yorker, admits he once thought leaving was unthinkable, but now relishes the work-life balance—plus those spontaneous pool breaks with the kids at 5 p.m. That’s one way to redefine the city that never sleeps.

Bustle Media CEO Bryan Goldberg had high praise for south Florida’s local government, describing it as a patchwork of small towns where leaders are accessible and responsive. Apparently, it’s easier to get the Miami Beach mayor on the phone than to decipher the maze of NYC bureaucracy—a little Kafka in every city council meeting, perhaps.

Luxury retail consultant Melanie Holland echoed the gripes of many who’ve made the leap: why pay sky-high taxes to step over sidewalk tents or watch your neighborhood Walgreens shutter because of theft? She says her clients are also fed up with rising crime and the city’s new eau de marijuana.

Even businesses are feeling the pull; David Feingold, CEO of Broadstreet Global, says at least 20 staffers have filed to relocate. While New York’s high taxes and unpredictable weather are nothing new, the real deal-breakers now are crime and the ever-mounting pressure on city services due to immigration. Feingold’s biggest surprise? Not a single New York-to-Florida transplant he knows misses the old city’s famed culture all that much. Guess sunshine is the best art installation of all.

CBC president Andrew Rein put it bluntly: New York needs to up its game if it wants to keep its residents. The million-dollar question: are the city’s benefits still worth the sky-high cost? For thousands of former New Yorkers, the answer was a brisk walk to the nearest moving van.