[in2dadark]

"also just to go out to the store in the off traffic times?

you still sit in the traffic. 8 years ago it seemed to be a real nice place, now?"


I'm self employed and work my own schedule. It used to be a benefit. Now you're tailgated all the time by rednecks in monster trucks. I especially hate the ones where they have the ********* hanging off of the hitch on the back. Some are painted gold..!! I guess to signify brass? S. Fla is over run with idiots ... (****rymes with smesticals)

[daniellefort]

haha. yes those are so funny. It's really funny when you see it on a big truck and a guy is driving it. Isn't it the women who is supposed to have the guy by the ..... haha. I do like the little boat propeller one though. that's cute

[backtofla]

i think the hanging testes are pretty darn funny myself.

[sandbunne81]

I live in Sarasota. I really do think a lot of the negative thought is how expensive it is. Between my huband and I we make about $1000 week (about average for Sarasota). $75 goes to my son's health insurance (I work for the school board, if I got him insurance through the SCSB it would cost $250 a week, so $75 is a bargin!), $100 for gas, $100 for grocery, $150 for preschool, and that's just weekly stuff (not includig diapers, wipes, dog food, ...) Sarasota is a very nice place to live and/or retire if you have enough money.It is very expensive! There are a lot of activities for people of retirement age such as art musuems, Mote Marine aquarium, Jungle Gardens (zoo), Shebly Gardens (flowers), jazz in the park, beaches, ... Again if you don't have the money (double your cost in TN, NC...) then Sarasota may not be the place for you. We are putting our house on the market in August and planning to move to Indiana. We'll easily put down 25% for 4 3/4 acres more than we have (currently almost 1/2 acre) with a 3/2 house in just as good if not better shape than our current home. Again FL great, cost of FL bad.

[jello212]

This is going to be long and rambling, so please forgive me.

First of all as others have hinted at, Florida is too large for someone's like's and dislikes of their particular area to be criticisms of the entire state. I live in Pensacola and am not overly thrilled with it, but that doesn't mean I hate the state of FLorida.

And now for my observations of Pensacola, which may or may not apply to the entire state:

1. There is no reasonable housing for middle class people. Here, you can find houses for 50k or you can find houses for 300K. The choices for homes between 150 and 250 are slim. My wife and I live in a 1500sf, vinyl siding, .1 acre, cookie cutter home that we paid 170k for. In my opinion, this house should have cost 120k. If I had an extra 130K, I could have found a beautiful house very near the water. But the choices were slim in my price range.
2. The friendly people - they're not here. Well, that's not true. The people here are friendly enough in passing, but they are very difficult to get to know and it's tough to develop friendships (it doesn't help that 60% of the people in this town are navy and as soon as you get to know them, they are relocated). Beyond that, I just don't fit in here. It's hard to explain, so I won't try. I will say that this seems to be isolated to the Pensacola area because I've been to Orlando and Tampa several times and I had much more in common with the people I met there.
3. conditions of the city - there is a significant lack of zoning in this town. You can have a 5000sf home across the street from a mobile home which is next door to an auto mechanic's shop. Delapidated buildings are not renovated. Many of the buildings that were destroyed by Ivan are still nothing more than a pile of rubble. The city hasn't done anything to clean this up or to force the owners to clean it up. Also, there is no attempt to regulate billboards. I know it sounds petty, but the natural beauty of the area is blotted out by the billboards, gas stations, cheap hotels, and piles of debris, etc.
4. taxes - our property tax just went up by 1000. I have no problem paying higher taxes if I could see the fruits of that money. Instead our schools are
   rated near the bottom, they haven't cleaned up following the hurricane, and there's only 2 major road projects underway. One of the road projects was replacing the I-10 bridge that was destroyed by Ivan. This project was completed - 2 lanes in each way and higher/sturdier than before the storm (trust me, these are not temporary bridges). And yet, there are still 12 cranes working away building who knows what. The second project is the reworking of the I-10/I110 interchange. This project has been going on for 5 years. In those 5 years, I have seen the crews

   • build a temporary bridge
   • reroute traffic to temporary bridge
   • destroy the original bridge
   • build a new "permanent bridge"
   • reroute traffic to the new "permanent" bridge
   • destroy the temporary bridge
   • build a new temporary bridge
   • reroute traffic to the new temporary bridge
   • destroy the new "permanent" bridge
   • build a new permanent bridge.
   It's now close to 7 years later (I am told it was going on before I got here), and that exit is still not complete.
5. Cost of Living vs Salary - I have seen a few studies that show the cost of living in Pensacola being higher than Orlando, Atlanta, etc and yet, the salary range is much lower than those cities. **those studies were done in the months following Ivan during which the housing costs in Pensacola skyrocketed due to a large number of people looking for housing

As for Tn, SC, and NC, I can speak about NC since I am originally from Raleigh.

• The property taxes in Raleigh are lower than here
• Raleigh goes overboard with their zoning. It used to annoy me, but now seeing how bad things look with no zoning, I truly miss Raleigh's "Keep the city green" zoning.
• Cost of real estate - 150k will buy you the same house that it will in Pensacola and 300k will buy the same house. But you can get much more house in Raleigh in the 175 - 275k price range.
• Job opportunities - Raleigh was just named the #1 place to live for employment. (several places in Florida were very high on the list as well. Which goes back to my original statement, my issues aren't necessarily with the state of Florida. They're with Pensacola.)
• Topography and trees - NC has an abundance of topographical features including the mountains, rolling hills, and the coast. And NC has an abundance of tall pines, oaks, and poplars. Again, this sounds petty on my part, but this is where I grew up and these things become engrained. I'm sure that if I were from Florida and moved to NC, I would be complaining about all the damned hills and trees.

I guess the bottom line is everyone's situation is different and you have to make the decision that's best for you. Spend a couple of weeks in Panama City and see if it's what you and your family are looking for.