[Going-2-Florida]

Originally Posted by TampaKaren

I haven't read all the responses, but I've seen this thread pop-up on the unreads enough to think about it. IMO, the single most important issue Florida faces today is the lack of jobs. Over the past two years, I've watched the gap increase considerably between the "haves" and the "have nots." IMO, this economic disparity is fueling some of Florida's problems. Ask your relatives if they've noticed this where they live.

We won't need jobs, we have them already lined up.

Schools and kids safety is priority 1 and I think we can get that covered as well. If I need to home school or private school them we will.
My kids do not leave my yard unless one of us are with them anyway.
Just what we have taught them, they do not run the streets or walk 4 blocks away to go play, we just do not allow them to.
Yet we seem to get kids from 5-6 blocks away or other neighborhoods here and there parents have no clue where they are. Heck we have to make them go home on school nights. This is just bad parenting.

I am looking at some of the crimes in the Tampa area, one was a 12 year girl kidnapped from a mall, why on earth would any parent allow a 12 year old to spend a day at a mall is beyond me, they are asking for trouble and the parents should be arrested for allowing this. No 12 year old should be left at the mall on their own for any reason.

My kids will be at home where they belong, not roaming the streets.
If everyone took the time to look into the crimes you will see that most crimes committed on kids are the parents fault for not doing their jobs!

Reading back through many posting because I am shocked that so many people are so negative, I found that 2 years ago on here that crime was the reason not to move, then last year or so all that was discussed was hurricanes, do not come here because of the hurricanes. Now that they are at record low numbers, now it has moved over the the sex offenders as the main problem.

I read that someone who moved to Florida hated every minute of it and ending up in Asheville, NC. Well, if you love Asheville NC then you had NO business living in Florida and should have never moved to Florida in the first place. I know Asheville and there is not one town in Florida like it, slow laid back that is controlled by the Biltmore owners.

So maybe I should ask why are you leaving Florida and why on earth did you move their in the first place?

Or how can anyone ever be stuck in a place they do not like? If it were me I would not be stuck anywhere I did not like, if I did not have the money to move I would work 3-4 jobs and get the money but I surely would not be stuck no way no how.

I do not like it here and want to go back south, we are not stuck here but living in the south and moving here we found this is not for us.
We have lived in many places and everyone has their own likes but wow, if I hated Florida as bad as some of you I would not be sitting on a computer typing all day long, I would be finding way to leave.

We are in no hurry, I would not move my kids in the middle of a school year anyway, but man, seems that Florida is about ready to be cleared out with all the unhappy people.

One of my family members who lives in Florida told me that people were just spoiled rotten in Florida, properties were tripling, wages were going up, people got themselves in debt over their heads with investments etc and now that the entire country is in a mess they are sour about it.

I am just amazed that so many people seem to be depressed about living in Florida and are not doing anything about it.

For Muggy, drive through Cleveland Ohio, if you want a sandwhich I assure you that you will want to go hungry once you see it. The town is a rathole infested with drugs, crime, gangs and bums. You cannot even go to an Indians game without thinking you might not get to your car alive.

I am just totally blown away that so many people have made huge mistakes in moving to Florida and now hate it. Assuming that most of the negative posters have done just that because if it is that bad I am sure the lifelong Florida people are already gone by now..

Reading many of these post seems people are running out of Florida by the car loads.

[Going-2-Florida]

Originally Posted by Muggy

No problem, he can stew over this for a while:

Where I am:


Where I am moving:

Where I am
Columbus, Ohio

1828 Sex Offenders
118 Unmappable

Where you are
St. Pete Florida
758 Sex Offenders
74 Unmappable

1,000 more weirdos in Col. Ohio then St. Pete Florida.

[KathyA11]

Originally Posted by TampaKaren

I haven't read all the responses, but I've seen this thread pop-up on the unreads enough to think about it. IMO, the single most important issue Florida faces today is the lack of jobs. Over the past two years, I've watched the gap increase considerably between the "haves" and the "have nots." IMO, this economic disparity is fueling some of Florida's problems. Ask your relatives if they've noticed this where they live.

My relatives (in-laws) are retired, and well off. They're pushing for us to move nearby, but it's near the coast, and in a resort area -- two of the negatives on our list.

[DailyJournalist]

Going-2-Florida, if you are going to deminish the advice people have givin you on this board then why are you even asking our advice? If you are so sure about Florida then move down and stop asking questions!

[verobeach]

I love the 3 years (so far) that we've been living in Florida. It is my new home and I feel safe here. As you can tell from some of the posters, you either accept their reality or forget it. I'd have to say the single, most important issue about Florida is the pig-headedness down here. Or let me put it this way... if a Floridian is happy then they're not all over these boards trying to poke holes in other people's dreams. What you're reading are posts from folks who'd be miserable wherever they plunked themselves down.

[Tungsten_Udder]

Originally Posted by Muggy

Fair enough, I'm still leaving.

I don't know your whole story, but it will eventually be obvious to you that Florida is the hell hole you're denying it is. Go ahead and waste away in Margaritaville, just don't risk any kid's lives in the process.

Not trying to convince you not to leave. I was just pointing out that the reasons you're citing for leaving are not problems that are exclusive to Florida. It's not possible to escape crime or the chance that you or a loved one will be a crime victim. It's not possible to escape living near people who have taken actions that would have them classified as a "sex offender" under our current laws--whether those people have been apprehended for something and listed on a database or not. If those are the kinds of things that someone would require to not consider a place a "hell hole", then they'll find no place not a hell hole.

However, more than likely there's more to it than that, and it's fine to like or dislike a place for any reason you want. But I also think we shouldn't give people looking for factual information rather than someone's tastes misleading comparative pictures of different locations.

[Tungsten_Udder]

Originally Posted by Lakeland Yankee

From page 2 - National Sex Offender Registry
FDLE Florida Sexual Offenders and Predators

24 in my hometown in South Central PA
310 here in Lakeland Florida.
1071 in Orlando
684 in Tampa
746 in Miami
288 in Daytona Beach
1099 in Jacksonville

Compare your hometown to your new town in Florida for a better comparison.

Lakeland Yankee, do you have the links to the comparative studies of how "sex crimes" are classified and reported in different areas?

[ChrisA70]

Born in FL was born there IN FLORIDA, he didn't move to Florida on a whim... Ask the member first, don't assume everything like a few other people on here.

And the part about taking a ride around Cleveland and seeing a rathole, infested with crime, drugs, gangs and bums, then you have CLEARLY not been to Tampa before.

I left there after 15 years simply because of the economy, well it had a bit to do with the heat, and if I had a decent job there, or if there were any in my type of work not in Orlando, Tampa, Naples, or Miami where I refuse to live(a few parts of OUTER Miami are nice) I would still be there. When the economy was good, I was content there for the most part. I made the mistake of moving to SWFL. When I return I will go to the Melbourne area again, Vero Beach is another place I liked a lot, I was there for 3 years.

I don't hate Florida, never said I did... well I may have when I was having a bad day possibly. I will be there again.

Originally Posted by Going-2-Florida

I read that someone who moved to Florida hated every minute of it and ending up in Asheville, NC. Well, if you love Asheville NC then you had NO business living in Florida and should have never moved to Florida in the first place. I know Asheville and there is not one town in Florida like it, slow laid back that is controlled by the Biltmore owners.



For Muggy, drive through Cleveland Ohio, if you want a sandwhich I assure you that you will want to go hungry once you see it. The town is a rathole infested with drugs, crime, gangs and bums. You cannot even go to an Indians game without thinking you might not get to your car alive.

[Tungsten_Udder]

Originally Posted by Going-2-Florida

So, I am looking for what is YOUR single most important question you would want to know if you were moving to Florida?

That one is easy for me to answer: "What job am I going to have?" (so that tells me where I'll be working, what I'll be doing, how much I'll be making, etc.)

That's my number one question when moving anywhere, and asking it is the reason there are many places I haven't moved to where I'd like to live. I wish that did not have to be my question, but I'm not at a position where I could get by without a certain amount of income or where I could receive the income I need while living anywhere I'd like.

[Going-2-Florida]

Originally Posted by DailyJournalist

Going-2-Florida, if you are going to deminish the advice people have givin you on this board then why are you even asking our advice? If you are so sure about Florida then move down and stop asking questions!

I am not dimishing anyone's advice. I asked a question and it turned into a slug fest of how bad Florida is. I understand every state and all big towns have issues but my goodness, it is no more worse in any city in Florida then in any city anywhere else.
If posters want to compare sex offenders of the town they hate in Florida to a small town in NY then why cant I compare the town I live in Ohio to the town close to the area I want to live in Florida?
I understand certain people hate Florida so much they just cannot help themselves and post in anything that is remotely positive.
I read back 2 years post before asking this question and found that for some reason people love to take the "it makes me feel better" approach to bash Florida.
All I did was asked a simple question.
You hate Orlando, I would never move to Orlando in the first place, but most of your post and I have read them, bash the entire state of Florida.
If I hated a city so bad I would not be sitting around waiting for a miracle to happen I would be working on how I can get out of it.

Now, I do appreciate the responses, but wow, I cannot understand why people who hate the place they live so much but still are there. I would find a way to get out of that town and would succeed in doing so. I surely would not spend all my spare time convincing others how bad it is when it just as bad everywhere else.

If Orlando is a cess pool then it looks pretty darn good compared to Cleveland, Philly, NY, Baltimore, Detroit, St Louis etc. Orlando is crime free compared to those towns.

My question was what is the single most important issue.

So far here is my conclusion from those posters who took the time to respond to the question instead of turning it into a hate filled thread.

Jobs- Got them already lined up.
Schools- Can work this out, will home school if needed.
Sex Offenders - 1,000 more where I live.
Weather - No brainer.
Traffic- Can take me 30 minutes to get to work if I am minutes behind the traffic flow.
COL- I wouldn't mind paying more for the benefits but family members who live Florida tell me they are money ahead in this area.
Housing- Going to rent before buying.
Insurance- Car/House. This is an area I would need to look into.
Doctors and Hospitals- Another area that I am not sure about.
Family- Have members in 3 different areas of Florida, moved back to Ohio to be with family here and it was a huge mistake. We actually have hurt ourselves by doing this.
Sports and kids activities- My kids love them, we love them and we love to be outside playing basketball, soccer, we love to jet ski etc in Florida, we can do this year around. Swim, one of our favs, we can only swim 3 months out of the year here.

I spent a lot of time reading back in post to get these and it seems these are on my everyones list. If you have something to add to this list please do so.