Many ex-NewYorkers in Orlando/Jacksonville?

[Sensei Han]

Originally Posted by Alikats

I am a 23 year old native New Yorker. I have lived in New York, Connecticut and Boston throughout my life. I have to say in all my experience I have never picked up on any prejudice towards southerns. Reading this post is very shocking to me because i didnt even realize that there was this issue between northerners and southerners, perhaps i am living in a bubble. This was the case when i moved from New York from Boston and immediately discovered that people would trash me when they learned i was from New York because they assumed i was a Yankees fan. I have never followed sports and in all my years living in NY i didnt even realize there was a feud between Boston and New York over sports teams (again perhaps i live in a bubble, but its a bubble that cant be so bad if it keeps me from judging other people based on where they live). I am planning on moving from NYC to Jacksonville in a few months and do not plan on being an obnoxious New Yorker. My feeling is that if people are moving away from new york toward Florida, obviously New York is not giving them what they need and they feel Florida can. If is this is the case (as it is with me) why would we move down there to trash the people we are trying to associate with and form a sense of community with. It seems like common sense to me that people would move to Florida from New York with an open mind other wise why do it? Its just hard to read these posts and feel like im going to move down to Jacksonville and be lumped in with such a negative stereotype as soon as i open my mouth (i dont have a new york accent by any means, but i also dont sound like a southerner so...). I am hoping for a slower pace than i have to deal with in NY and some southern hospitality to rub off on me. Am i being naive?

Amen.

[KerryB]

Originally Posted by Alikats

I am a 23 year old native New Yorker. I have lived in New York, Connecticut and Boston throughout my life. I have to say in all my experience I have never picked up on any prejudice towards southerns. Reading this post is very shocking to me because i didnt even realize that there was this issue between northerners and southerners, perhaps i am living in a bubble. This was the case when i moved from New York from Boston and immediately discovered that people would trash me when they learned i was from New York because they assumed i was a Yankees fan. I have never followed sports and in all my years living in NY i didnt even realize there was a feud between Boston and New York over sports teams (again perhaps i live in a bubble, but its a bubble that cant be so bad if it keeps me from judging other people based on where they live). I am planning on moving from NYC to Jacksonville in a few months and do not plan on being an obnoxious New Yorker. My feeling is that if people are moving away from new york toward Florida, obviously New York is not giving them what they need and they feel Florida can. If is this is the case (as it is with me) why would we move down there to trash the people we are trying to associate with and form a sense of community with. It seems like common sense to me that people would move to Florida from New York with an open mind other wise why do it? Its just hard to read these posts and feel like im going to move down to Jacksonville and be lumped in with such a negative stereotype as soon as i open my mouth (i dont have a new york accent by any means, but i also dont sound like a southerner so...). I am hoping for a slower pace than i have to deal with in NY and some southern hospitality to rub off on me. Am i being naive?

Its really like this anywhere you go. People usually by nature dislike when others are different from themselves.

And I can relate to the sports thing. Growing up in KY, almost EVERYONE digs on UK (Univ of KY) basketball. Its like some kind of plague. But I myself couldn't care less about it, so would get ridiculed a lot, like something was wrong with me because I didnt blindly follow college basketball or something. I found the whole thing pretty dumb, especially looking at it from a distance nowadays after I've moved on & lived in many other cities.

I think you'll be fine here as long as you associate with open minded individuals & stay away from the ignorant bumpkins. But I'd move to the right area of town & choose wisely. Besides, FL on a whole is a very transient state, so I find it silly that many who have moved here years ago could poke fun of newcomers.

[maggieair]

I'm moving to Jacksonville, Florida as soon as an apartment becomes available. I want to live near the ocean and have wanted to all my life.

I have a secretarial (in-house typing) business that I've had since 1995 and will continue to work for clients via the internet. One of my clients, a Southerner, commented that Jacksonville, Florida was just like south Georgia since it wasn't far from south Georgia. He liked the idea of their being a lot of Southerners in Jacksonville. I do like a lot of Southerners (as I am myself a Southerner), but I have always dated guys from New York, Chicago, and really seem to understand "Yankees" more than Southerners. I have been to South Florida and almost married a New Yorker I met on the beach there.

I hope that Jacksonville will have a lot of people from up north and the Midwest and not be all Southern. From reading these posts, there seems to be a lot of people from New York and New Jersey moving to Jacksonville. I have always understood and felt more compatible with people from up North. Several of my friends are from New York and Minnesota.