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i've been on dixie highway and on interstate 95, too. the only slums i have seen were on the northwest side of miami-dade, especially in the vicinity of opa locka airport. other than that, i did not see anything that was run down or covered with graffiti or garbage in broward county. by the way, my group and i did not even encounter any crazy weaving drivers either, and it was tuesday afternoon, too! we did encounter a few minor traffic backups and some road construction, but not much else. and this was driving all the way from key largo! also, my guess is, whatever slums that were in broward county were very likely wiped out by hurricane wilma.
Broward has the usual business districts that consist of tire stores and such and not much to look at, but you won't find anything that can be described as a slum. The worst street is sistrunk from 7th Ave. to 31st Ave. and that is about it. Most anything that was rundown has been bulldozed.
West Broward blvd., most of Sunrise blvd., NW 9 Ave. and NW 7 Ave. there is almost nothing left and it is all being redeveloped. The land in this city even the bad stuff is just too valuable. In fact I had to go for a building permit and the new city office is at NW 19 St. near I-95 an area you would never have gone a few years ago. The poor are being squeezed out pretty quick.
Ft Lauderdale is like any other city!!! If you want to go searching for bad areas, yes OF COURSE there are some!!! I'm sure there are "slums" in the cities in AR as well!!! Jeez Louise!!! Were you people who are always commenting on the bad areas born in a bubble? Raised in a bubble?
I mean, there are plenty of small towns across the country that have little to no crime - even in FL!!!
People come on here asking about Ft L or Miami, or Tampa -OBVIOUSLY they don't WANT a small town!!!
In that case the post would read (like some do) "Looking for a Mayberry in FL"...
So this thing about bad areas is getting OLD!!!
It IS helpful to tell people WHERE the bad areas are to avoid them, but that's not what people on here tend to do.
It's more like, "Oh, there are bad areas in this city! Stay away from this city!" Come ON guys!
hi everyone. i have certainly seen a lot of flaming about florida. i was wondering what people would think of fort lauderdale. (of course, having been there myself allready, i know the truth! lol)
Here's the Truth on Fort Lauderdale:
1. The traffic has been really bad this summer and will get worse when the snowbirds and tourists arrive. If you like to ride a bike or walk, you're taking your own life into your hands at busy intersections such as Federal Highway at Sunrise where there's only one small crossing area across Sunrise and none across Federal Highway. Drivers here think pedestrians and bikes should yield to them. Hit and runs are increasing as driver's race away at scenes of accidents.
2. Broward County hasn't been able to coordinate the traffic lights for years so it's mostly stop and go and you waste lots of expensive gas and time even when there is no backed up traffic due to the lights not being set correctly. This has been a problem for years since Hurricane Wilma and it's still not fixed.
3. There are lots and lots of hard core street people in Fort Lauderdale and the number is increasing. This area has become a big attraction for them because of the weather (no snow), the Salvation Army shelter on Broward Blvd. near downtown, a health clinic run by Broward Health off Broward Blvd. near downtown, free emergency room service at Broward Health and parks in the downtown area for them to sleep in when they aren't sleeping in the doorways of many of the closed businesses in Fort Lauderdale.
There are also lots and lots of poor people living in Fort Lauderdale and more and more low-income public housing projects have been built between Broward and Sistrunk Boulevard to join those already in that area. Median income seems high in Fort Lauderdale but is high only because Florida is a tax haven for the wealthy since there is no state income tax and very low inheritance taxes here. Many wealthy people who own property here but who live most of the year, if not all, in other states or countries, claim Fort Lauderdale as their primary residence because of the lack of a state income tax because then they don't have to pay a state tax on the money they live off of from their investments. The wealthy who claim Fort Lauderdale as their primary residence don't actually spend much time living here and that's certainly in evidence from the lack of many businesses that would normally cater to their needs and shopping habits that you'll find in other cities with high median incomes, again due to the averaging of a minority of extremely high incomes against middle and low class incomes.
4. Lots of high rise condo and apartment buildings have been built downtown but downtown remains mostly a ghost-town as the large Riverwalk shopping complex downtown is mostly empty of any retail tenants or restaurants.
5. Although you have to pay the city to park to use the beach, the city won't provide public restroom facilities on or near the beach so if you need to use a bathroom, you have to cross back across AIA where you paid to park to use the beach and hope you can find a business that will let you use their restroom. Of course, if you're wealthy enough to be paying hundreds to thousands of dollars a night to stay in the high end hotels that were built that now shadow parts of the beach area in the late afternoon during certain times of the year built on land where the small two and three story affordable room price hotels and motels were torn down, you won't have any problem being let in to use the bathroom and if the shade from your hotel keeps you from tanning on the beach, those hotels usually provide roof top pools so you can take your sun without having to deal with the shade on the beach from the building you're staying in. A bit of advice to beach walkers, be aware that you can't get back to A1A for nearly a mile if you start walking up the beach starting at Oakland Park Boulevard in front of the Galt Ocean Mile high rises because the developers did everything in their power to make sure there was no public access between their buildings to A1A to make sure their tenants have what amounts to a private beach on public land.
6. Jobs are really hard to find in the city because most of the retailers are located out in Sawgrass Mills and as these are discount retailers, most of the sales people don't get commissions. For some reason, big employers like Publix Supermarkets hires mostly minorities to be their cashiers. As the Latin population grows, more and more businesses are requiring that their employees speak Spanish.
7. Global Warming is hitting South Florida hard. July was a record for the number of days over 90 degrees, over 20 days this year compared to a norm of 14. Miami Beach increased taxes to cover the costs of pumping out seawater coming up through the rainwater drains during high tide and Key West is also seeing sunny day flooding in some areas because of seawater coming up through the drains during high tide. Fort Lauderdale won't be far behind in having to raise taxes since it's criss crossed by rivers and canals, sits next to the Intracoastal Waterway and the storm surge line used to be at the railroad tracks, meaning in previous times before rapidly rising seas, it could be expected that if there was a storm surge from a strong hurricane, seawater could flood all the low lying land between the ocean and the railroad tracks.There are only drainage systems set up on the canals to lower them if a hurricane is predicted to come in but there are no flood controls on the surrounding rivers and nothing can be done to lower the water level of the Intracoastal since it's connected to the ocean.
8. After Hurricane Wilma hit, not even considered a major hurricane, people in Fort Lauderdale were without electricity for up to 2 weeks. Imagine having no air conditioning or fans to keep you cool during 90 degree plus weather with so much humidity the heat index is well over 100 degrees. Many people have gotten so used to air conditioning that many residential properties don't have screens on the windows so if they have to be opened because of no electricity, then in come the disease carrying mosquitoes.
9. It's predicted by 2050 that if sea levels only rise at the current predicted rate of increase, salt water will start intruding into the limestone under the Everglades which holds South Florida's supply of drinking water and very expensive desalination stations will have to be set up to take the salt out of the water and the cost will be passed along in water bills.
10. Fort Lauderdale hasn't seen a hurricane come ashore since Hurricane Wilma, so people have been lulled into thinking this is a safe area to live in so more people have moved here. Considering that the 1935 hurricane that generated an 18 foot tall storm surge that wiped out part of the Middle Keys before they were as developed at they are now, even with an expanse of coral reef that the surge broke against, Fort Lauderdale wouldn't fair so well either because it sits pretty close to sea level and would be just about completely covered with flood waters if such a storm surge hit here. Considering the increase in population South Florida has seen since our busiest hurricane season in years which is when Wilma hit, along with Rita and Katrina, there aren't enough hurricane shelters to accommodate those who want to go to them and evacuation routes would be clogged with slow moving traffic due to the numbers trying to get away from a storm coming in like Hurricane Andrew that devastated the Homestead area. Evacuation isn't always safe either because if you look at maps of Florida that show where previous hurricanes hit, you'll see that sometimes they bounced back in forth across the state and even struck again in areas that had already been hit when they turned and came back around and hit the same areas again.
Last edited by HotandHumid; 09-03-2014 at 05:48 PM..
Ft Lauderdale is like any other city!!! If you want to go searching for bad areas, yes OF COURSE there are some!!! I'm sure there are "slums" in the cities in AR as well!!! Jeez Louise!!! Were you people who are always commenting on the bad areas born in a bubble? Raised in a bubble?
I mean, there are plenty of small towns across the country that have little to no crime - even in FL!!!
People come on here asking about Ft L or Miami, or Tampa -OBVIOUSLY they don't WANT a small town!!!
In that case the post would read (like some do) "Looking for a Mayberry in FL"...
So this thing about bad areas is getting OLD!!!
It IS helpful to tell people WHERE the bad areas are to avoid them, but that's not what people on here tend to do.
It's more like, "Oh, there are bad areas in this city! Stay away from this city!" Come ON guys!
Considering the amount of miles that Fort Lauderdale takes up, there is very little in Fort Lauderdale that one could call a, "good area." Most of Fort Lauderdale consists of pocket neighborhoods in very expensive to live in areas that people call "good areas" that are surrounded by areas of low income projects and Section 8 housing.
Take a look at Fort Lauderdale's main boulevards and then dare to call these "good areas." Whether you are coming in from the airport up Federal Highway or off of I-95 on Broward, Sunrise or Oakland Park Boulevard, you'll see practically nothing but dollar stores, laundry mats, pawn shops, seedy bars, stripper clubs, car repair shops and run down looking drive up motels. There are small pockets of neighborhoods off of these boulevards as you get past the railroad tracks where middle class people live but they're nearly surrounded by "bad areas" that are full of urban blight.
Fort Lauderdale can't even keep it's downtown area vibrant with the huge Riverwalk shopping complex sitting almost empty, the parkland north and south of it empty of people except for street people. This area is located just a few blocks away from the Las Olas "nice area" of stores and restaurants. Have you ever gotten out of your car at that McDonald's downtown instead of using the drive through and seen the people lying around inside asking you for money or camped out at the doorway doing the same? I wouldn't suggest it unless you like being panhandled and subjected to verbal abuse and the body odors coming off people suffering from mental issues.
Even in the so called "good area" of Wilton Manors, check out the area crime reports to read about all the shoplifting, drug dealing, drunken driving and the like.
Maybe you live in one of those rarified wealthy occupied high rises near the Galeria upscale shopping center with a Publix nearby, along with a Starbucks and the like where you have well marked cross walks and you don't have to spend any time in the real city of Fort Lauderdale where you are subjected to the daily affronts of closed businesses, a bad job market in a national economy that's growing, street people roaming the streets like something out of the Walking Dead tv show, neighborhoods full of blocks and blocks of nothing but public housing projects, a nearly empty of business Sistrunk Boulevard in spite of all the street improvements in the area, streets that are difficult to cross because of a city government geared towards getting people around in their gas burning cars instead of walking or biking and having to look at all the poorly landscaped run down looking areas of Fort Lauderdale that can't seem to get back what it put into Broward County in the form of property taxes to try to beautify those areas and try to attract the sort of middle class people who don't live to spend most of their time getting from place to place in their cars, as it seems the majority of Fort Lauderdale does, or who have to resort to some sort of public aid of some sort or the other to survive here, as it seems a large part of the population has to because of a city government that does nothing to promote it's neighborhoods like other cities do by putting on art fairs, street festivals and the like to attract people to visit those "bad areas" and attempt to bring some improvement to them.
Fort Lauderdale has increasingly become a place where people who can afford it live behind walls and up inside security guarded buildings so they don't have to deal with the reality of the rest of Fort Lauderdale while telling anyone who will listen as they drive around in nice weather with their windows up in their cars and the air conditioning blasting in their residents during 70 degree winter days that they "came here for the weather."
Last edited by HotandHumid; 09-03-2014 at 07:10 PM..
Broward has the usual business districts that consist of tire stores and such and not much to look at, but you won't find anything that can be described as a slum. The worst street is sistrunk from 7th Ave. to 31st Ave. and that is about it. Most anything that was rundown has been bulldozed.
West Broward blvd., most of Sunrise blvd., NW 9 Ave. and NW 7 Ave. there is almost nothing left and it is all being redeveloped. The land in this city even the bad stuff is just too valuable. In fact I had to go for a building permit and the new city office is at NW 19 St. near I-95 an area you would never have gone a few years ago. The poor are being squeezed out pretty quick.
I think you're absolutely right about the poor being squeezed out but instead of moving to other areas, they're moving into the streets or into the blocks and blocks of new public housing that's been added to the area between Sistrunk and Broward Boulevard where there's already blocks of public housing there that was built decades ago.
If one gets out of their car instead of driving past looking at a lot of areas of Fort Lauderdale and walks or bikes around in the area, you'll probably notice that Fort Lauderdale is pretty much devoid of any street level activity that doesn't take place inside of a shopping mall, in spite of our nearly year round sunshine. About the only people you'll see are street people hanging out on bus stop benches, in the parks, and sleeping in locations such as on the porches of that closed building across from the Hampton Inn downtown on Andrews Avenue. All that wealthy high rise development property downtown hasn't brought any improvements to public places in downtown and actually, the Riverwalk shopping complex has less tenants than before those buildings were built.
I'd say most people would agree that Wilton Manors has pretty much become upscale but then why is it's main street so devoid of landscaping and other traffic calming structures on Wilton Drive and why is there so much crime in the area when you take the time to look at the crime reports? Sure the police do a good job of keeping things in check but why is Fort Lauderdale such a mecca for street people and those who engage in petty crimes if the property values are so high and you're trying to equate high property values with a desire for people to live somewhere when property development has become such a scam these days in places like Fort Lauderdale with banks giving loans to international developers to tear down and build buildings that go sitting mostly empty in Florida so the developers can write off their losses against the profits on their fully occupied buildings in more economically vibrant places like New York City and Los Angeles?
All that I can see from rising property values is more and more gone out of business buildings on Federal Highway, Sunrise and Oakland Park Boulevards and rising rents which drives out the middle class and turns the smaller apartment buildings where they used to live into section 8 housing for the poor.
Maybe others haven't noticed but while Fort Lauderdale has seen more wealthy people buying property claim this area as their primary residence in order to avoid state income taxes on their investments, much of that property isn't occupied very often during the year as the wealthy seem to prefer to spend their time and money around other wealthy people rather than in Fort Lauderdale and this is in evidence due to the lack of much in the way of a large number of new restaurants and retail stores like you see in South Beach being built or taking over empty business buildings while parts of Federal Highway, Broward Boulevard west of Andrews, Sunrise Boulevard west of Federal Highway and Oakland Park Boulevard west of Federal Highway have all actually seen a large number of business that catered to the middle class close and be replaced by thrift stores and other low end businesses such as pawn shops, sex toy stores, fast food restaurants and the like.
If you think it's bad on Oakland Park Boulevard now, just wait until the Walmart opens where K-mart now stands and listen for the great sucking noise that happens where ever Walmarts are opened and cause area retail businesses to close down when they can't compete with Walmart's prices due to their bulk buying and strong arming their suppliers to keep prices low so Walmart can put it's competition out of business. I've seen several news reports about how crime increases in areas where Walmarts are built due to the low class people that Walmarts attract and how Walmort won't pay to have their parking lots patrolled by security even after several hold-ups and rapes in those parking lots so maybe that will level off the rising housing costs and property values as it will sit very close to Wilton Manors and nearby Oakland Park neighborhoods that have seen property value increases.
Last edited by HotandHumid; 09-03-2014 at 07:24 PM..
i've been on dixie highway and on interstate 95, too. the only slums i have seen were on the northwest side of miami-dade, especially in the vicinity of opa locka airport. other than that, i did not see anything that was run down or covered with graffiti or garbage in broward county. by the way, my group and i did not even encounter any crazy weaving drivers either, and it was tuesday afternoon, too! we did encounter a few minor traffic backups and some road construction, but not much else. and this was driving all the way from key largo! also, my guess is, whatever slums that were in broward county were very likely wiped out by hurricane wilma.
Lmao either you're lying / making things up, never been here or didn't spend a significant amount of time here or didn't see enough of broward county. Broward County definitely has ghettos. To name a few from the top of my head, pompano, lauderhill, Deerfield Beach, Hollywood, lauderdale lakes and Fort Lauderdale.
And drivers and traffic here in broward are just as bad as any major metro areas.
Broward has the usual business districts that consist of tire stores and such and not much to look at, but you won't find anything that can be described as a slum. The worst street is sistrunk from 7th Ave. to 31st Ave. and that is about it. Most anything that was rundown has been bulldozed.
West Broward blvd., most of Sunrise blvd., NW 9 Ave. and NW 7 Ave. there is almost nothing left and it is all being redeveloped. The land in this city even the bad stuff is just too valuable. In fact I had to go for a building permit and the new city office is at NW 19 St. near I-95 an area you would never have gone a few years ago. The poor are being squeezed out pretty quick.
Really? Lauderhill, pompano, Deerfield, Hollywood don't come to mind?
A reply to some of the statements made here about "downtown" ft. Lauderdale being empty, I believe it's because ft. Lauderdale has always been a suburban beach town and just like all the other idiots here trying to make their suburb a big city, they went ahead and tried to make a downtown in ft. Lauderdale that was suppose to be this big metropolis. IMO, that's a bad idea because that defeats the purpose and point of a suburban beach town and ft. Lauderdale was good at that. Everything has a role it should play to make everything as a whole good and run smooth.
Oh wow didn't realize that. Maybe that's why there was so much non sense lol.
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Jeez Louise!!! Were you people who are always commenting on the bad areas born in a bubble? Raised in a bubble?
Fort Lauderdale isn't a Good Place to Live.
