Moving to Miami

Miami is an absolutely monstrous city, and your post offers little to guide anyone interested in helping you. Have you a distinct need or desire to be near the water? What price range? Are you moving permanently, or just renting and moving away for the summer?

My favorite part of Miami for hip and trendy is Miami Beach, but that is on the high end of most budgets. I also like Coconut Grove.

Without knowing where you'll be working; what your budget range is; whether you speak Spanish; whether you can stand hour+ bumper to bumper commutes; it is hard to advise. In general South Beach is the very definition of hip & fun & you CAN find places to live there on a reasonable budget, esp. in the summer, but lux living close to the beach can be awfully expensive.

my sympathies on your coming shock. are you renting or buying? south beach has a lot of rentals and can be doable if you dont mind noise. if you want amenities, look at the big condo bldgs on west avenue where i live. if you like dinky but cool deco, there are a lot of units. if youre buying, thats different.
you can also rent a fab new condo downtown for 2k, but be warned of the miami hype. there is nothing to do over there. its dead, and a construction zone to boot.
coconut grove has rentals, but usually more expensive that much of south beach. typically larger townhouses.
if you are buying, i suggest miami shores or shenandoah/silver bluff, north and south of downtown, respectively. but you will pay about 500k for 1200 sq ft, not necessarily renovated.
miami takes about one year to get over the shock of: hideous traffic, inflated prices, ridiculous housing costs and more spanish than you even imagined. good luck.

yes, overpriced ass you get close to the coast.... I personally like Aventura or Sunny Isles which are not too deep into So. Beach but close enough 10 minutes or so to the action.