[Strel]

Originally Posted by kit_kat

I have lived here a while now and can outline my own personal negatives.

The main bad points imho are (in no particular order):

4. religious conservatism is the dominant culture
5. business connections are often made through the "church culture" so if you don't belong to a church it is hard to start a business.

Say WHAT? Tallahassee is one of the most liberal cities in Florida. It is one of the Democratic party's strongholds in Northern Florida. If you look at the red/blue map from the last few elections...Tallahassee is a blue dot sitting in a wide red area....

Many people say that this is a good place to raise a family. I would say that crime/safety wise it may be but bear in mind that this is only really true if you are a Christian and fairly conservative.

I totally disagree with this. I have lived here 22 years and this has not been my experience at all.

For example a large proportion of people in the town do not believe in evolution and this is reflected in the policies of the public schools.

This is just factually wrong...just plain not true. Where on earth did you get this idea?

I'm not mentioning to start an argument of any kind I just want to present a fact. For me personally this is a strong negative to the town. This is something which will not necessarily be noticed so much by students so I thought I should mention it. If you feel yourself to be a liberal you will probably not like Tallahasse.

Well I am a liberal, surrounded by other liberals, in a town where liberals and moderates dominate local government...

I think maybe you were in a different town?

[Strel]

2004: 62% for Kerry, 38% for Bush
2000: 60% Gore, 38% Bush, 2% Nader

I guess a lot of those religious conservatives that allegedly dominate Tallahassee are secretly voting Democrat!

LOL

United States presidential election in Florida, 2000 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

United States presidential election in Florida, 2004 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And this: Image:Florida2004bycounty.PNG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Note the big blue blob in the Pandhandle. That's Tallahassee and its surrounding communities.

Our little blue island of liberals in the buckle of the Bible Belt.

[VaMomatHome]

summers are brutal, because you are so far from the coast. you don't get that ocean breeze, but it is a wonderful town otherwise. traffic??? try living near DC

[Strel]

Originally Posted by VaMomatHome

summers are brutal, because you are so far from the coast. you don't get that ocean breeze, but it is a wonderful town otherwise. traffic??? try living near DC

Or any major city. Traffic is only bad in Tallahassee relative to its size. They are still working off the original plantation roads, that don't necessarily lend themselves to modern traffic control....

[dcuper1]

I lived in Tallahassee for four years while going to FSU.

The city is very beautiful, the people very nice, but I did find that most are very religious conservative there so it is hard to be a liberal.

Jobs are tough in Tallahassee since the students agree to work for very little and there are a heck of a lot of students to go around. You have to be a high end professional like a doctor or lawyer to get a decent job or work for the state or school. Most other middle management jobs get taken by grad students for 20-30k a year.

I think to be happy in Tallahassee you have to like going to church, go hunting, fishing, watching FSU football games, and get all of your arts, theater, from FSU.

Granted it was a huge cultural shock for me when I moved to Brooklyn, NY.

[SwinginPineapple]

I love Tallahassee. : ) I went to college there. I would agree that the city is quite segregated...evident by the low performing schools on the south side and high performing schools on the south and east sides. I LOVE the weather...I grew up in south Florida and found Tally refreshing. There are fun mom and pop places to eat, some beautiful parks, and holiday celebrations.

Traffic is crappy.

[RChrisJ]

I have a few problems with the city.

*the City of Tallahassee (the electric company, that is) charges extra fees on your utility bill to fund different things in the city.

Controversial utility fees pay for Tallahassee parks, police | tallahassee.com | Tallahassee Democrat

*prepare to be screwed with cable/internet/phone service from Comcast or a satellite provider. If you have a satellite - well - everyone knows the problems that can come from satellites. Comcast is head and shoulders above everyone else in terms of the overall suck of their service. I've lived up and down the east coast and every place I've had Comcast has been the pits. When you contact Comcast, prepare yourself to hear "Comcast is experiencing higher than normal call volume." You usually get it from about eight in the morning til around eight at night. The cable box routinely freezes up, internet is slow and often dinks out, phone service is decent.

*you'd think Tallahassee might be a little better weather wise then the rest of the state since we're just south of the GA state line. Not so. Tallahassee and Miami are essentially the same in the summer - hot. If it's 100 there, it's ninety-five here. No difference, really, except we're not likely to get obliterated by a hurricane.

*traffic is a mess. Per capita the dumbest drivers in the country. Very few people seem to have grasped the concept of what red and green lights mean and fewer seem to understand they have turn signals on the car for a reason. You'll routinely see people stop at "invisible" stop signs (that is they're not there, but by God, they're gonna stop). The norm is five to ten miles an hour under the speed limit regardless of which lane you're in. The timing sequence of the traffic lights is screwed up which contributes significantly to traffic jams.

*TPD is a joke. When I'm out driving, I'll actually catch up to a cop (I refuse to call many of those who work for this agency "police officers" as that's a term that denotes respect) and violate multiple traffic laws. Speeding, no turn signal, and nothing. To their credit though, they do crack down on college kids for minor, negligble offenses. Gotta turn a buck somehow, I suppose.

*because it's a college kid heavy city, expect a general lack of common sense and manners. I'm only twenty-nine but was raised in a southern family. That is, I was taught "yes sir" and "no ma'am" and all that stuff. I was also fortunate enough to not be a blithering idiot which, if you're not, will automatically make you smarter than at least half the people here (half being a conservative estimate).

*there's a general isolation from everything. Jax is over two hours away. Pensacola is three. Panama City Beach is around ninety minutes.

These are the problems I could think of off the top of my head. I don't think I'd ever recommend Tallahassee to anyone unless they were in state government or were planning on doing their four years at FSU and then getting out.

[gumbyfly]

RChrisJ:
1) cable TV is a nationwide racket. It is not isolated to Tallahassee.
2) the weather may be hot in the summer, but so is everywhere else in the southern hemisphere.
3) I am learning that everyone in the entire panhandle of Florida drives the same retarded way. I personally chalk it up to a poor driver's education system and lack of law enforcement.
4) I am not sure 'isolated' is accurate, unless there is something that Jacksonville, Pensacola, and Panama City Beach all provide (besides an ocean beach) that Tallahassee doesn't. By this definition, every non-coastal city on earth is 'isolated'. I think Tallahassee builds a certain expectation because it appears to have so much - like a big city, when in reality it is just a small town with a lot of big attractions. The Home Depot in Tallahassee will only have 6 different styles of socket wrenches in a limited stock, while the Jacksonville Home Depot will have 60 different varieties, and a huge inventory of each. There are only two Taco Bells in Tallahassee, while Panama City has two Taco Bells and is a third the size of Tallahassee...

I guess it all depends on your perspective. Having moved from Tallahassee to Panama City Beach, I would move back to Tallahassee in a second if I could find a job that pays me more than I am making out here.

[kit_kat]

[quote=Strel;3015319]Say WHAT? Tallahassee is one of the most liberal cities in Florida. It is one of the Democratic party's strongholds in Northern Florida. If you look at the red/blue map from the last few elections...Tallahassee is a blue dot sitting in a wide red area....


I totally disagree with this. I have lived here 22 years and this has not been my experience at all.

This is your opinion and I respect it, however as an outsider that moved here I am leaving because of the conservative religious culture. This kind of thing is very relative. I moved here from Santa Barbara, a red voting town in California (from the stats), however in reality the culture there is way more liberal than in Tally.


This is just factually wrong...just plain not true. Where on earth did you get this idea?

Just this week the house voted to essentially permit teachers to discuss intelligent design in science classes. This is a religious matter which should not enter science and this sort of thing is damaging the education of Florida's young people. I find this very upsetting. I also teach and on many occasions students have commented to me that they don't believe in evolution.

[gumbyfly]

Originally Posted by kit_kat

I totally disagree with this. I have lived here 22 years and this has not been my experience at all.

Seems Strel stated "one of the most liberal cities in FLORIDA" - not in the USA.

You won't likely find any Save Tibet or Hillary '08 bumper stickers outside of Tallahassee (except for tourists). You also won't see war protesters every week anywhere else except Tallahassee. You also don't get the whiny liberal media slant, no matter how minimal it may be compared to California, anywhere in Florida other than Tallahassee.

I personally think it is better to be surrounded by Christian values than by no values at all. Tallahassee is a good mix, but is overall slanted mostly to the left.

Just not as insane as the left coast.