Does anyone of you feel like South Florida is a dead end like a dead end street? (Rio: fit in, apartment complex)

[tankev]

Boy I miss "girls night out"! There has been some talk of a girls night on our cul de sac but just in passing. That is the problem with moving so much. It is very hard to break into established friendships as an adult.

Chelsa 1075- I am in Weston; The Springs

[Chelsa1075]

Don't worry Tankev - when I move down, I will make it a point to have a girls night out and invite you. I agree about the friendsips as an adult thing, so you have to try and make friends any way you can. Genuinely nice people will allow you into the click (LOL). I have a friend that I just met and the end of of last summer, her and I have hit it off and it is like we have been friends forever. Some people come into your life and you just mesh and she is that for me. She lived in Coral Springs and came back to NYC 2 years ago. She is dying to go back, I'm glad she came because her and I have become such good friends. She now is planning her trip back, which is music to my ears.

[Wild Style]

Originally Posted by fauve

I agree. When the kids were small, we lived on a cul de sac of modest homes in Country Walk in Kendall. We were outside everyday watching the kids and I became very close to the parents there. We had parties all the time (was always someone's birthday), the kids ran in and out of all the houses, and the Moms went out for girl's night out. Definitely the highlight of my kids childhood, and the most memorable neighborhood experience we ever had. We never found that again - even at a larger house in Country Walk or at Weston. We left because the house was small-ish, and I was always sorry we did. A cohesive neighborhood is priceless.

Yes, indeed!

[mooie2e]

My gosh, I did not know it was that bad!! I have moved back to NY 20 years ago. Also, I have forgotten how much I hated the dreaded "flying waterbugs". I believed they were called palmetto bugs.

Anyway, I did not know that the driving had gotten worse. When I lived there, the only problem were very old people driving 15 miles an hour. Everyone else were more or less decent drivers. Also, when I lived in Sunrise back in the late 70's, the town was a bedroom community. Slowly, new families were moving in and new communities were being built. Therefore, the public schools were starting to get crowded. Then, unfortunately, there was really no place for teenagers to go other than hanging around the Multiplex theatre parking lots.

I kept in touch by subscribing on-line to the City of Sunrise website and am so shocked at all the new construction still going on there. How many strip malls do you need? How many restaurants can you go to? I owned a house that was at the westernmost part of the city (near the Everglades). Now I understand that my old neighborhood is now the middle of Sunrise. They will just keep building and building until there is no where else to go to enjoy the natural beauty of the Florida Everglades.

I came to Florida as a newlywed and lived there for 14 years. It really was a nice place then (job market was a little tough, but I did manage to find something decent), it was very quaint, very Florida-like with pink bungalows and very Art Deco. Now it seems to be like a lot of towns all over the US.

[Nolefan34]

mooie2e>

"They will just keep building and building until there is no where else to go to enjoy the natural beauty of the Florida Everglades."

That has already happened. They have already maxed out the available land and there are no more natural areas. Now, they are just building on top of the existing development. Also, the slumping real-estate market has slowed down new construction projects.

Broward County is 180 degrees different now than how you remember it. You would not even recognize it. There is no difference between Sunrise, Plantation, Cooper City, Coral Springs, Margate, Hollywood, or Fort Lauderdale. It is one big urban expanse. There are no separate towns anymore.

The old ladies doing 15mph has now become the hot-shot lawyers and doctors driving Mercedes and BMW's cutting you off doing 60mph on US1. When you are stopped at a stoplight, if you don't have your foot on the accelerator before the light changes from red to green, they honk you. South Florida has become New-New York. The mentality is similar. I remember my relatives coming down to visit in the 80's and the joke was that everyone in FL drove slow. You don't hear that anymore because it has become quite the opposite.

Today, instead of pink bungalows and Art Deco, you find noisy expressways with traffic, and cookie-cutter mega-developments with generic yellow or orange homes on zero lot-lines. Those are the nice areas, then there are the ghettos that have been decaying for years.

The word "quaint" and South Florida do not belong in the same sentence. There is nothing quaint about this place.

[Chelsa1075]

You know what Nolefan, you are right on the money - I don't think that you can really compare SF to New York, however, I do agree it is very different from what it once was. I have to say as a NYer, I would be scared to death to go to Pork & Beans.

[tonyc]

Originally Posted by Nolefan34

mooie2e>

"They will just keep building and building until there is no where else to go to enjoy the natural beauty of the Florida Everglades."

That has already happened. They have already maxed out the available land and there are no more natural areas. Now, they are just building on top of the existing development. Also, the slumping real-estate market has slowed down new construction projects.

Broward County is 180 degrees different now than how you remember it. You would not even recognize it. There is no difference between Sunrise, Plantation, Cooper City, Coral Springs, Margate, Hollywood, or Fort Lauderdale. It is one big urban expanse. There are no separate towns anymore.

The old ladies doing 15mph has now become the hot-shot lawyers and doctors driving Mercedes and BMW's cutting you off doing 60mph on US1. When you are stopped at a stoplight, if you don't have your foot on the accelerator before the light changes from red to green, they honk you. South Florida has become New-New York. The mentality is similar. I remember my relatives coming down to visit in the 80's and the joke was that everyone in FL drove slow. You don't hear that anymore because it has become quite the opposite.

Today, instead of pink bungalows and Art Deco, you find noisy expressways with traffic, and cookie-cutter mega-developments with generic yellow or orange homes on zero lot-lines. Those are the nice areas, then there are the ghettos that have been decaying for years.

The word "quaint" and South Florida do not belong in the same sentence. There is nothing quaint about this place.

Go back to the 70's ~~ my old aunt lived in Hollywood then. 45mph was fast for her.

[Nolefan34]

tonyc>

I believe you. I am not that old, and was not on this earth in the 70's. But I remember the mid-late 80's growing up and the popular reputation was that little old ladies who can barely see above the steering wheels of their Cadillacs dominated the SF roadways. I don't really know when that trend shifted, but I guess it was gradual throughout the 80s and 90s when the area exploded in population. Today, you see far more ultra-aggressive drivers who cut people off and don't use turn signals than little old ladies driving slow. I think that South Florida went from being a small-town Southern culture to a big-city New Yorkish environment in such a rapid amount of time that some people cannot deal with it. That is really where a lot of the complaints originate from on this message board.

[Wild Style]

Originally Posted by Nolefan34

tonyc>

I believe you. I am not that old, and was not on this earth in the 70's. But I remember the mid-late 80's growing up and the popular reputation was that little old ladies who can barely see above the steering wheels of their Cadillacs dominated the SF roadways. I don't really know when that trend shifted, but I guess it was gradual throughout the 80s and 90s when the area exploded in population. Today, you see far more ultra-aggressive drivers who cut people off and don't use turn signals than little old ladies driving slow. I think that South Florida went from being a small-town Southern culture to a big-city New Yorkish environment in such a rapid amount of time that some people cannot deal with it. That is really where a lot of the complaints originate from on this message board.

ummm when did that happen?

[Caleb Longstreet]

I could go on for days regarding South Florida. Oh, how I hate it so. It's the people that grind your gears, period. It's the only place I know where you can spend over $200/night for a hotel and get treated poorly.

I've written volumes about South Florida, look them up. Regardless of how you feel, you will laugh your rear off. 8 years....felt like I got paroled when I left. I got down there in 89 and wanted to leave within a year...unfortunately, it took 7 more to get out. Most companies will relo you down but precious few will take you out. It leaves them with a hole that is hard to fill....but I digress....

Leave as soon as you can. It's just not worth it. The man is right. There are truly 2 classes. But the following statement kind of says it all.....

If you were to walk down Federal Highway on a Sunday afternoon and yell, "stop thief", probably half the folks walking would run....there's a reason that the show COPS spends most episodes down there. There's always a plethora of crack heads with split lips ready to go on camera about how their wife-beating spouse just laid her out....

That and their stylish attire....always a guy without a t-shirt, always a pencil-think crack headed woman going on about he has to change.....jeeeez, why would he....best thing one can say is "what's a matter, didn't she listen?"

Oh....the flavor of South Florida.....hey, and if your company bills anyone for anything, good luck in getting paid. You'll spend 1/2 your time collecting and enjoy a good 5-7% bad debt write down...get used to it.....

Man, you just made my day. I'm so glad I left it 11 years ago....the nightmares are almost gone....good luck!