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I lived in Florida my entire life. Traffic, $25 cocktails, and rising rents convinced me to move out.

by with No Comment Xpandfy

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Natalie Alatriste, a 35-year-old native Floridian who grew up in Miami-Dade County. In 2025, she moved to Arlington, Virginia. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Growing up in Miami in the ’90s, I remember it as a vibrant place. My family is Hispanic, and I’m of Cuban and Mexican descent. I grew up surrounded by so much culture — Cuban, Mexican, Haitian, Venezuelan, and Colombian — because that has always been part of Miami.

I also think Miami was a lot quieter when I was growing up. It wasn’t the vacation destination everybody wanted to visit or move to. It had small, cool spots like Little Havana, and while that’s still there, the city feels very different now.


A picture of a baby girl playing with a toy shovel in the sand.

Alatriste playing on the beach as a child. 

Courtesy of Natalie Alatriste



There’s a pre-COVID Miami and a post-COVID Miami, and the post-COVID version is completely different. The cost of living has gone up, and so many people have moved in that traffic is always heavy.

In 2024, I seriously started thinking about leaving not just Miami, but Florida entirely. The state’s politics became a turning point for me. During the presidential election, everything I voted for — the amendments, the candidates, all of it — went in the opposite direction.

It was definitely a tough decision. My family had kept me anchored there for so long. But I just knew I needed to go.

Florida didn’t feel like home anymore

The pandemic brought a lot of people from out of town, and that drove up the cost of almost everything. I was working at a large global agency and making about $175,000 a year, yet I still felt house-poor.

Before leaving Florida, I lived in a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in Coral Gables that I moved into in 2020. My rent started at $2,200, but five years later, management was asking for $3,750 — even though nothing in my unit or building had changed.

My energy bills and grocery bills also went up. Going out got more expensive, too. In Miami, there are so many places where it’s normal for a drink at a bar or restaurant to cost $25. I think that’s because so many people from higher-cost places like New York moved to Miami after the pandemic.

Even driving was a headache in Miami. The highways are always under construction, which only worsens congestion. I have so many stories about nightmare traffic there. Sometimes, getting somewhere within five miles of where I lived could take 30 to 45 minutes during rush hour.

Public transportation also didn’t feel like a real option because it’s limited, and Miami gets so hot. Even if you live in a walkable area, it’s still uncomfortable to walk, ride a bike, or take the bus — you end up showing up soaking wet.

The D.C. area is more suited to my lifestyle

I’ve always loved the D.C. area and visited often growing up. In high school, I attended Obama’s 2009 inauguration through a school program called Close Up. During that trip, we stayed in Arlington, Virginia — about 18 minutes from D.C. — and I fell in love with the area.

I’ve always gravitated toward this part of the region, so it felt like the natural place for me to move. Still, I was pretty nervous, especially once it all started to feel real.

Packing up boxes and knowing the movers were coming felt heavy. The day I left was very emotional. It felt like I was leaving behind everything I knew, and my support system, to start this new journey.


A man wearing glasses and a woman, both dressed in black, smile for a selfie.

Alatriste and her partner. 

Courtesy of Natalie Alatriste



In Arlington, I live in the Shirlington neighborhood with my partner. The area has a small village with a few shops, and there are a lot of families and couples in their 30s and 40s. I’ve made really good friends with a lot of my neighbors, and I’m in a book club.

Miami has a very heavy drinking and partying culture. So stepping into something new — where I have a book club, I’m going to the gym, and I have neighbors I do game nights with — is exactly what I had always craved. And I finally found it.

Life is more affordable and enjoyable in Virginia

My partner and I live in a 2,500-square-foot, three-bedroom, three-story townhouse and pay about $4,350 a month in rent. Being in a dual-income household helps, but in general, everything feels more affordable in Virginia, from groceries to car insurance and eating out.

I was laid off from my previous job and started a new business. I’m a consultant for several large healthcare companies, and I also do some contract work on the side.

Starting my own consulting business in Virginia was much easier than it would have been in Miami. When I left in January 2025, there just wasn’t a big headquarters presence in Miami outside of industries like travel, tourism, food and beverage, and a growing tech scene. That’s really the city’s sweet spot and what drives the local economy, but it’s not the kind of communications work I focus on.


A man and woman pose for a selfie; tall trees stand in the background.

Alatriste and her partner in Virginia. 

Courtesy of Natalie Alatriste



In Virginia, I’ve been able to network more effectively with people in the healthcare industry because so many people in that field are based here or regularly pass through. Right now, I have about five or six clients, and I recently made my first part-time hire, so things are going really well.

My quality of life feels much better in Virginia. I don’t feel like I’m wasting so much time or spending so much money just to live.

I do miss my family, and I won’t say I’d never move back. But I would need to see significant changes in Miami before seriously considering that again.




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How Ukraine’s war-hardened cities kicked into ‘blackout mode’ as Russia plunged entire regions into the winter dark

by with No Comment Xpandfy

A new wave of Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has put two of its biggest regions to the test, as local cities rolled out plans for dealing with their worst blackouts in years.

Their prepared “blackout mode” response provides some insight into how urban centers might steel themselves for energy crises in wartime, especially during cold months. Ukraine’s winter can turn brutal in January and February, when temperatures typically drop to 18°F.

Mass blackouts can also disrupt water and sewage systems, hospitals, public transportation, and road control, including traffic lights.


Ukrainian residents queue up for water with plastic bottles on the street.

Ukrainians in Dnipro must collect water at public access points during power outages.

Roman Mykhalchuk/Suspilne Ukraine/JSC “UA:PBC”/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images



Both Ukrainian troops and civilians have long learned to cope with frequent energy shortages in the winter, maintaining backup generators, battery-powered lamps, and stockpiles of coal or gas.

But Moscow’s latest attacks on Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk, two eastern Ukrainian regions, plunged both areas into almost total darkness this week.

Regional leaders have described it as their biggest energy crisis since 2022, when Ukrainians first faced wartime power outages. Borys Filatov, the mayor of Dnipro, Dnipropetrovsk’s largest city, said the situation there was one of the most severe in the country and had risen to the level of a “national emergency.”

“This is the first total blackout in the entire region in recent years,” Ivan Fedorov, Zaporizhzhia’s governor, said in a statement on Thursday.

As national authorities reported that over 1 million people had lost heat and water, local officials rushed to restore power and open access to facilities prearranged for the blackouts.

One of their prepared responses was to deploy “invincibility points,” or earmarked emergency shelters equipped with heat, communication, and basic necessities.

Some local governments publish a map with available locations for civilians. The city of Dnipro, for example, maintains a list of mostly schools, municipality buildings, and metro stations designated as safe spots.

Civilians are meant to visit these shelters to “warm up, charge your gadgets, and wait out the power outage,” per the municipal government.


Ukrainians gather around power sockets to charge their phones.

A key feature of invincibility points, such as this one in Odesa, is the ability to charge your phone.

Yan Dobronosov/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images



A video published by Oleksy Kuleba, Ukraine’s vice prime minister for reconstruction and the minister for community and territorial development, showed one point in Dnipropetrovsk that appears to be located in a small convenience store.

Kuleba said the region’s energy sector had been hit with a “massive blow,” and that over 5,000 people visited 500 such locations in the city of Dnipro within 24 hours after the power outages began.

Kuleba added that neighboring regions in Ukraine had donated 45 generators to Dnipropetrovsk, where some of its trains had switched to burning onboard fuel for power.

Zaporizhzhia’s governor, Fedorov, also said on Thursday that the region had 400 established invincibility points, with 200 ready for visitors within two hours.

“Residents could warm up, call their relatives, drink hot tea, and, if necessary, stay overnight,” he said.

Filatov, Dnipro’s mayor, said on Thursday that the city had set up 130 water dispensers, which his staff marked on Google Maps, and that disrupted public transport would be temporarily replaced by buses.


Ukrainian residents queue up for the bus.

Dnipro residents queue up for a bus, which local authorities said would replace critical public transport disrupted by the blackout.

Roman Mykhalchuk/Suspilne Ukraine/JSC “UA:PBC”/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images



Hospitals were already equipped with alternative power sources and necessities, while parts of the city, on the western bank of the Dnipro River, were supported by backup power, he added.

“The city’s sewage system is also powered,” Filatov said.

Notably, Filatov said that while authorities had extended local school holidays to January 11, kindergartens would operate on four-hour shifts “because it’s clear that parents are also in a difficult situation.”

In Zaporizhzhia, Fedorov said the region had been left “completely without electricity” on Wednesday evening.

“We immediately went into ‘blackout’ mode and started working according to a clear plan,” he said.

Zaporizhzhia’s hospitals similarly switched to backup power within minutes, and the region’s traffic lights “worked autonomously,” he added.

Restoring power as the shelling continues

Ukrainian officials have since said that power has been partially returned to both regions, with Kuleba reporting on late Thursday evening that water and heating in Dnipropetrovsk had been restored to over 1.7 million people and 270,000 people, respectively.

Energy supplier DTEK said that around 700,000 families in the Dnipropetrovsk region once again had access to electricity, though it added that Russian bombing was continuing.

“An exhausting day for energy workers in the Dnipropetrovsk region,” the company said.

Fedorov warned repeatedly on Thursday evening of incoming drone and guided missile strikes over Zaporizhzhia. He later said that Russia had carried out over 728 strikes, including drone attacks, artillery shelling, and multiple-launch rocket system strikes across Ukraine that day.

Both Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk are close to the southern and eastern front lines in Ukraine.

Kyiv has often accused Russia of specifically targeting energy infrastructure during the winter to exhaust and punish Ukrainian civilians, which is a war crime but is often difficult to prove.

The Kremlin has often responded that its strikes were intended for legitimate military targets, though the years have shown that critical facilities are regularly damaged or destroyed by the attacks.

“There is no military sense in such strikes on the energy sector, on infrastructure, which leave people without electricity and heating in winter conditions,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday.




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