[robivi3]

Momto, Weston is 45 minutes from Bal Harbor in whose dream? Maybe on a Sunday morning when there is a hurricane afoot and everything is closed. I live in Sunrise, right next to Weston. The entire place is an armpit. The towns can look lovely but believe me the community standards are very low compared to what the average American is used to. My mother lives in Windmill Ranches. It is OK, they have had several breakins in the area though it is gated.

I have been here 35 years. Since the age of 12. I make excellent money so i cannot leave with three kids college age right now, but i will be getting out in two years. I am off Hiatus Road by Sawgrass Mills. I used to love it here in Sunrise. Then they built that darned arena and linked Hialeah and Sunrise/Weston/Bonaventure with the Sawgress Xway and I-75 extension. It brought the damnable nightmare that is Miami-Dade County up here. there is a reason why people are leaving this area, we are losing longtime friends Hispanic/White/Black to Tennessee, Atlanta and North Carolina in considerable numbers. My wife is Colombian, my my step mother is Colombian and my kids have even lived for awhile in Valle Dupar Colombia. I am from Tennessee originally and will return in two years, mother, in laws and all. I hate this place now, my family wants out. Ask me about any road, neighborhood, street or building in Dade/Broward, I know the place very well. If you have good standards where you are do not put your kids in this environment. Weston has gang problems, kids will have some problems there. People don't have to like what i've said. I've lived here most of my life and i am speaking the truth.

And yes, I remember about 1997 when Weston had it's first gang stabbing. It opened all of our eyes to the fact that our area was being overrun, overdeveloped and headed downhill. I beg you, don't bring good kids to theis armpit of a place. Bal Harbor, very nice, my Dad lives there (divorced). If you can afford Windmill Ranches in Weston, just buy in Bal Harbor and be done with it.

[elfyum]

"It brought the damnable nightmare that is Miami-Dade County up here."

And what exactly is your gripe with Miami & or Dade Co?! Alot of people moved to Broward because houses were cheaper, though not anymore. Broward was more white suburbia. So I would have assumed your comment to be "racist", but you indicate otherwise. (Good! )
So I am wondering what "issues" you have with our county? (Just curious because I myself have never much liked Broward because of it's "blandness" - not quite the right description but the best I could do at the mo )

[Criss1956]

Originally Posted by macguy

The panhandle, it is Florida the way it used to be. We moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1950 and I grew up there. It was a paradise, now it is a cesspool, in fact all of south Florida is a cesspool. The panhandle has clean air lots of room and less crowed, an all around nice place to live. We are moving in the next 12 months somewhere between Tallahassee and Bonifay probably the Chipley area.

Oh no, come on down here to Panama City Beach. What's the use of living in Fl, if you don't live near the beach. PCB is growing but that's life, what can you do. In some way's, some of the groth is good. If you search on the west end of the beach, you will find it about as it was back in the 1960s or so.

[macguy]

Originally Posted by Criss1956

Oh no, come on down here to Panama City Beach. What's the use of living in Fl, if you don't live near the beach. PCB is growing but that's life, what can you do. In some way's, some of the groth is good. If you search on the west end of the beach, you will find it about as it was back in the 1960s or so.

I have to be honest, that post you responded to was made quit a while ago and from reading it now I must have been in a pretty bad mood when I wrote it, I know I offended a few people. I used to be in the bar business for many years and own quite a bit of rental property down here. I guess dealing with the public in one way of another for so many years I am just a little tired of it all down here.

I had my house robbed not that long ago when it was being tented for termites. They went right in gas and all. The cop who responded to the call said it happens all the time. I have had cars stolen or broke into, my wife was hit by a hit and run driver in a parking lot last year, there are so many areas I would not walk in because it is not safe. I used to like to jog, forget that you may get will get killed by some person who probably doesn't even have a license. That's why you read about so many hit and runs.

Even if they are not at fault, they either don't have a license, are here illegally, or drunk, they can't take a risk of having to talk to a cop so they leave some kid dying in the street and take off. Is it better somewhere else, yes for sure. I have traveled enough to know not everybody lives like this and I am liquidating everything and getting out. I can see how someone with no responsibility who just rents a condo near the beach may love it down here but a property owner with all the headaches of living here sees it through different eyes. The place we are considering buying by the way is in Bristol not far from you.

[Everett]

I've read this long thread with interest, since I grew up in Tampa and just returned from an exploratory trip to Sarasota to investigate my fantasy of returning--going home again as they say. It seems that most of the people who want to move to Florida are attracted by the weather, the beach and the tropical ambiance.

The traffic, crime, density, cost of housing, insurance (car and home) are realities that long time residents have either learned to live with or they moved. I develop residential real estate in Warner Robins, Georgia, just south of Macon. You can buy a 2500 sq. ft. home there for $180,000. Raw land is about $5,000 an acre. The people are friendly--it is warm and southern hospitality is a way of life.

It has crime. In the South, as anywhere in the nation, you will find crime but it is mostly property related with none of the carjacking, stickups, rapes and assaults you see in the larger cities. In this years Money Magazine's best places to live article, Florida has only 4 cites in the top 100 and the first is at number 27; things are changing.

The sweeping generalizations required to describe geographic areas lends itself to inaccuracy and argumentation. Of course there are notable exceptions to every one of them. Floridians are leaving the state in large numbers. A close friend owns a real estate company west of Nashville, Tennessee and he is besieged by Floridians. Every southern state is seeing an influx of people who would rather live in safety than see palm trees and warm winters.

South Georgia is being overrun by relocating Floridians--with good reason. It is almost as warm, safe, friendly, and inexpensive. I love the "Redneck" comments; you find stupid, mean, coarse, ill-mannered people in every state. A dairy farmer who spends his life outdoors looking after his cows has a redneck from the sun; you can find him at church on Sunday, at the Rotary Club on Wednesday and at his son's football game on Friday night.

Redneck and rural are not the same. There are a lot of people who can live anywhere they choose--I am one. I have been in 49 of the 50 states and in all the towns big and small in between. If you are affluent, you can afford to live in safety anywhere. If you have no children or you can afford the best private schools, then location makes no difference.

If you go to London or Tokyo and walk around downtown by yourself at midnight, the feeling of safety is joyous. Tokyo (a city of 20,000,000) has about the same number of murders each year as Tallahassee, Florida--London, not many more. We are learning to live in fear--and that is frightening. (And ironic)

There are nice places throughout Florida--places where you can live and avoid the onerous insurance costs and crowding--but they will not be that way for long. The people on this forum represent a very small % of people who think the same way and have the same ambition; everyone wants to live in paradise. So, soon there is no paradise.

By the way, many people on this forum write extremely informative posts which would be much more easily digested if they were to use paragraphs. A continuous stream of information that is not relieved by intermittent visual breaks (such as paragraphs offer) makes it hard to read.

[backtofla]

crime comparisons for the states

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

according to research i have found on the net, fla is not one of the highest for MURDERS. yes, lots of car theft and things of that nature, but not murders. in the southeast, louisiana, mississippi, and georgia, south carolina, north carolina, arkansas, tennessee, kentucky, and alabama all had higher murder rates from 1995-2004. this is according to deathpenaltyinfo.org.

let me guess, someone is going to say that the research is misleading or wrong??? right??? remember fla has like 17 or 18 million ppl. tn or alabama has like 7 million ppl. all stats have to be compared by the number of ppl living in the state. fla is below national avg in murders according to this website.

[+] Rate this post positively

[shaneoakes]

Everglades City for sure.

[Jammie]

Mac, it sounds like you have been through a lot in your area and it's time to move to a place that's a bit safer.

[robivi3]

elf, so you will know I am Tennessean, my wife Colombian, my step mother since age 12 is Colombian. I speak fluent Spanish, my oldest son is Hasidic and speakes English, Spanish, Latin, Hebrew. My youngest speaks English/Spanish and the middle has been to China and speaks Mandarin somewhat english and spanish. I will not tell where I work but to say that i do work for a governement agency in Dade County.

I take the "racism" comment as an accusation because truthfully, without knowing me, that is exactly how it was meant. Having lived 24 years in "your County" and worked 24 years for the Governement in "your" County and having lived the last 12 in Broward I can tell you that until recently even broward was a decent place to live, not great but OK. Florida, regardless of RACE has always had very low Public Education standards. It was a predominantly sleepy, uneducated place even in the fifties when whites ran everything. Since the Southern end of the State has been pounded by huge influxes of people, riots, storms etc... it has exceeeded the ability of any State to keep up with the tumbling quality of life. In 2000 Sperling named miami as having the lowest quality of life of any American City. The US Census Bureau listed Miami as the poorest City in America with a population of over 300,000, Miami Dade the poorest County in America with a population of over 1,000,000.

Miami Dade County has a drop-out rate of over 50%. American High in a so called good neighborhood graduates 39.6% of it's students. By comparison Oak Ridge Tennessee, an area born in technology, we had one of the men who split the Atom at our house for dinner in Nashville years ago, has among the highest rated schools in America, and a 99.6 graduation rate.

During my last trip to Tennessee I stayed a night in my cousins house in Nashville (we went to see the Parthenon and then back to Cumberland county). He speaks little english and works for the Doral in Nashville. He transferred to Doral CC in Miami and left within three months complaining that "these people do not even greet you and they have no mannners, I love my Nashville". He says that he will not return ever to Miami.

At the Dollar General store in Crossville the manager heard me (this big gringo) speaking spanish to my mother in law and asked where we were from. As it turns out he lived two blocks north of me on Hiatus and 44st. He is Puerto Rican, has three small children and left after Wilma, his parents are moving up and he has said that he will never return to live. He told us that the schools are the major difference, beyond that the friendly acceptance of the white americans was amazing and he loves the area. He drives twenty miles from Monterrey, TN daily.

Shall i continue? Or shall we just read TODAYS MIAMI HERALD. Anyone thinking of coming here please read todays Miami Herald August 13, 2006.

Todays headline "Area sees middle class exodus"

Sub heading "An outward migration is eroding South Florida's middle class, even as the region grows overall. QUALITY OF LIFE IS CITED-congestion and the cost of housing and Insurance".

If you want to site me a racist for being tired of low standards, unbridled immigration, storms, high cost of living and a community that tolerates 22 Hatians (on my street, NINE CARS in the driveway at nite) living in a three bedroom two bath home then cite me as a racist. Yes, I am leaving friend, along with many blacks and hispanics who also give a **** about the quality of life. I didn't even discuss RAMPANT reverse (I know that there is no such thing, that discrimination is discrimination under the law but i use the term here for expedience) discrimination against white Americans, it is overwhelming, especially in local Governement.

AND YES, my neighbors (Hispanic and Black so that you can be sure the we aren't racist for God Forbid!!! demanding that housing standards be enforced) have reported that home to Sunrise, Welleby and the broward housing Authority, "nothing we can do". Laws and a community that won't get involved in enforcement, sounds like a rathole to me!

South Florida is a rathole

Anyone considering a move to this digusting place , please consider carefully before you cause harm to your family. And please don't mention FCAT, a test that they give classes for? I thought that was what school was for, having raised three boys here, what a joke of a school system.

[rkumar3]

If you want to live in South Florida, try to move up to Palm Beach..... It is much better than Dade/Broward. While most people 'think' it is expen$ive, it still has lots of nice areas with decent prices... Try Boynton Beach! Better prices than Miramar/Weston yet extremly central. Ofcourse if you have more money, my first choice would be Delray Beach/Boca Raton