Live in Lovely Saratoga Springs, convince me not to move to FL (New York: apartments, insurance)

[Ellwood]

Florida is a nice place to visit, but May through October, the heat and humidity keep you indoors with air conditioning; with the large influx of people moving to FL (1,000/day) the state infrastucture is unable to bear the burden. The cost of homeowners insurance has skyrocketed also. Property taxes are quite different from neighbor to neighbor.

Saratoga is such a lovely place to live! Friendly people, beautiful views. I'd take the snow over heat and humidity anyday!

[YankeeFaninOrlando]

Been living in FL for over 25 years after moving from NYC. I totally agree with everything you mentioned. Florida was once nice. Not anymore. I have convinced my wife (FL native) to live in NYS for 6 months/year when I retire. A major victory as far as I'm concerned.

Originally Posted by homeward bound

Grew up in Buffalo--but much of my family (mom, dad, stepdad, sister) ended up in Florida. With one exception, they ALL wished they'd stayed in NY State. Maybe not poor ol' Buffalo anymore, but Upstate, anyway. Among their complaints (which got worse, not better, over decades of time, as Florida's flaws vs. Upstates merits only got clearer):

-Can't be outside almost half the year due to the crushing heat. You're a PRISONER of air-conditioning. And what you think you're saving on heat you're spending on electric.
-Crowded, pushy, over-developed and getting worse all the time. "I'm in what everyone said was heaven, damn it, so get out of my way! I was promised no need to accommodate the reality of other living human beings down here! It's all for ME, all the time! So HONKHONKHONK!" Developers run the state, so development far outspeeds the infrastructure needed to make that development sane and livable.
-Generally lousy, overcrowded, underfunded schools.
-Overcrowded court system throughout the state, due to crime and guns and drugs (see below).
-Hidden taxes, coming in the form of fees for this and that, that match NY State's notoriously high taxes, but which do not produce same high level of services.
-Monotonous environment. NY State's types of mountains? Farms of all sorts? Unpolluted lakes? Rolling hills? Trilling streams? Gorges, canyons, waterfalls? Incredible state park system? The Adirondacks? The Hudson? The Great Lakes? A soaring Norway Spruce against the crystal blue sky above the passed storms gasp of fresh snow? Maples ablaze, the first trumpet of daffodil yellow just when you'd begun to doubt if Spring would ever happen again? And all the memories of childhood, family, dreams rooted in the changing, moody seasons? No way. And thus very little opportunity, much less tradition, of getting out and really knowing the world around you. Little opportunity for special, cherished, protected-from-development places to seep into your soul, along with the CHARACTER of the seasons.
-Monontous weather. Summer major, summer minor, summer major again, TURN UP THE AC! SHUT THE DOORS AND WINDOWS TO KEEP THE AC IN! IS THE ALARM SYSTEM ON? WHO LEFT A DOOR TO THE WORLD OPEN??
-Hurricanes. My dad went through the worst of Andrew thinking about snowstorms in Buffalo just to calm himself.
-Humidity. Take the most humid day you've ever experienced in Saratoga Springs. Now make it twice as bad. And make it last for four or five months in row. Add another 20 degrees of raw heat produced by the much stronger sun of being near the tropics. Add also just about nobody being able to be outside for very long--and all the isolation and loneliness this produces. THAT's Florida for half the year.
-With the humidity's haze and the increasing congestion's worsening pollution, it's very hard to see the stars there. Crystalline nights don't happen in Florida--you won't find yourself realizing you've been looking into the night sky for a long time, just thinking, remembering, and then suddenly feeling that God may be real and even near.
-Crime. Not just in the obvious urban areas, but encroaching into the new developments.
-Saturated with GUNS, and crazies eager to misuse them. I'm not talking responsible shooters and hunters gun use, I'm talking road-rage and gang-member gun misuse. Guns in teenagers' hands, all over the place. In maybe six months total time in Florida I had more guns pointed at me just for driving only 10 m.p.h. over the speed limit (and not the 25+ m.p.h. over that people wanted) in Florida than I have all my 45 years living elsewhere.
-LONG LONG LONG stretches of hideous cinderblock lowrent shopping plazas of nail salons, porn shops, muffler shops, junkyards, more nail salons, etc., etc. Today's hot new shopping plaza is the next decade's rundown eyesore.
-Drugs. = Crime squared. It's still the country's #1 point of entry for drugs, and it shows. No geese coming and going north and south with the seasons--those are cop sirens, ambulance sirens, fire engines. And the relentless hostility of ever more impatient TRAFFIC.
-Super-inflated home prices (despite the recent bubble-retracting).
-Notice, "developments." Not towns, villages, hamlets, small cities. Not places with roots, character, tradition, IDENTITY. And all of the "developments" are centered not around places to share life and time and the real town, but around SHOPPING. And MORE SHOPPING. Until you go home to watch more satellite TV. That's "community"!
-Obviously, then, a huge and general lack of community: community spirit, community traditions, community touchstones, physical community centers. Village greens? Town greens? Free concerts from the town gazebo? VFW picnics, fire department picnics, church building fund picnics? KNOWING who your neighbors are, and who your neighbors' parents and grandparents were, and what all this meants? Forget about it! Gates and highways and parking lots and more gates and corporate gypsies coming and going and being known more by what car they're leasing than by who they really are and more suspicion and hostility and isolation than you can imagine, instead.
-Fire ants. They DO hurt, and can be dangerous. My daughter got SWARMED in about five seconds of standing in her cousin's backyard. Was screaming in pain, had to be rushed to the doctor, etc. KIDS CAN'T PLAY IN THEIR OWN YARDS IN MOST OF THE STATE FOR MUCH OF THE YEAR.
-The grass has to be of a certain sort so it can withstand the heat--and it's so coarse you do NOT want to be on it. Certainly not barefoot, certainly not for a game of tackle football or a picnic, etc.
-Artificial ponds in artificial "developments" choked with fertilizer run-off boiling in the relentless heat, and stinking. The closer you look at these lovely-from-afar lakes, and the more disgusting you see they are. In fact, the fish have very high mercury levels and shouldn't be eaten throughout most of the state because the food-cycle in these lakes is so out of whack.
-Racial tensions just about everywhere. Not just black and white, but black and hispanic and white, and Cuban and non-Cuban hispanic, and Jamaican and non-Jamaican black, and Cuban and non-Cuban white, etc., etc.
-Lousy state university system compared to the SUNY system.
-Monotony of demographics. In many areas, lots of elderly people with relatively few kids or younger people around. Likewise, pockets of younger people, with relatively few kids and elderly. Pockets of this here, that there, and no real natural mix of age groups, working and retired people, etc. An overly differentiated arrangement of people often based on age alone.
-Smells like sewage in many places, no matter how ritzy. Don't know why--except that with the water-table just a few feet down into the mucky, swampy soil, it might be very hard to bury the sewer lines deep enough, or else they break and leak a lot, etc. But you can SMELL Florida more than you want you. Buffalo smelled better back when the steel mills were still going!
-Swarmed by beyond-rude HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of drunken, bent on reckless hell college students every Spring.

Okay, Floridians: let me have it.

But I'd rather have poison ivy on my eyeballs while cleaning the Saratoga Springs Racetrack stalls, in January, than be king of Florida's nicest "development."

[dreamofmonterey]

Originally Posted by llong

We live in Saratoga Springs and enjoy all of the opportunities here for families and education system. We have family in the Boca Raton area of FLorida that for the past 7 years have tried to convince us to move to Floirda. Well after our trip to Disney, and the never ending winter, I have thought about moving. The problem is that I like everything here except the winters. Is it worth moving my whole family just for sunny skies???? Does anyone have any insight on this?

visit the Florida forum for a bit. Dont be in a rush and please research it. Will you be working? There is no job market in Florida.

Taxes and housing are high, and rising. Costs are equal to NY, but jobs aren't. HOI and HOA costs are also rising.


sunny

[kristalou]

I couldn't have said it better myself. I lived in South Florida (originally from NY) and hated it the whole 7 years I was there. I am so grateful to have left (in So Cal now, but considering a move back to NY). I would never set foot back in that state again, but my immediate family lives there and have to visit from time to time. I honestly can't think of a more miserable place to live in this country.

If I remember correctly, Saratoga Springs is relatively close to where my family (now in FL) lived in Niverville....either way, upstate NY is breathtaking. True the snow is a bummer, but at least it goes away for most of the year. Florida is horrendous 24/7 - 365 days a year. I am jumping in on this post sort of late, so if you are still deliberating please take the good advice of Homewardbound and stay put. Or at the very least, cross that hell hole off your list. Good luck to you!

[llong]

Thanks Kristalou, as I still go back and forth on my decision as the majority of my family live there I think about the pros and cons of moving to Florida often.

My S.A.D. is okay now, as spring turns me into a new person. I am taking steps to dealing with the winter, and learn to enjoy the fun I had as a child in the snow. I remember spending hours building snow forts, sledding etc....and gray skies didn't matter. Its hard to picture a life without changing seasons. Your right, winter does pass, and spring is a new beginning. Summer all year sounds appealing at first, but it may get old.

Anyone else have experience with this?

[kristalou]

I know the seasons can really affect some people - especially winter. I haven't experienced a "real" winter in years, as I have spent most of my adult life outside of NY (lived in CA, then FL, then back to CA!). We have winter here in So Cal, but nothing like the northeast. But I can tell you that when you leave it behind, you will miss it. The changing seasons can be beautiful and like you mentioned, looking at it as you once did as a child might change your tune. Play in the snow! We are never too old to play! I get S.A.D. during the winter here when it is NOT cold! All you would need to do is spend Christmas (or Hanukkah) shopping and holiday decorating in your shorts in Florida a couple of years in a row to know that it is just plain weird! Hard to get into the holidays when it is 80+, humid, and wearing shorts! It was for me, anyway. Whatever you decide, hang in there and go with your gut. Good luck!

-Krista

[Flagon]

Well, I am from NNY, moved to Central FL and am now living in Ballston Spa. Like any state, I'm sure there are towns that are wonderful in FL, but we will take NY anyday. Saratoga is walkable and cute. I find the housing prices here in the Capital Region to be out of control, so we will be moving in a year. But, if we grew up here and had all of our family close by there is no way we would move. We get cute towns, small town feel, access to shops and eateries and NYC is a short drive away. This is a good place

[LisaAnn67]

I soooo agree with everything I just read.

If you read my posts (lisaann67) you will see I live in Apopka Fl (sub of Orlando) and desperately want to move back to western NY. Don't get me wrong..I loved Florida when I first moved here in 1991. It has really changed for the worse over the last 10 yrs.
Please do not move...you will regret it....if not in the beginning..then later.

[iheart]

Originally Posted by llong

I don't understand how all of these things exist and yet it continues to be an oasis for my father and brother....Keep convincing me....any other stories from people who moved to Florida from NY and then moved back????

LOL...I think they're trying to share some of the pains with you....
I do remembered someone from FL have told me there are lots of cockroaches and snakes in their backyard and driveway.

[joer]

Was it Robert Frost that said "Two roads diverged in the woods. I took the one less traveled by, it has made all the difference. FL is nice to visit, that's about it!