Kendall area advice (Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa: low income, fit in, real estate)

[paulroger]

My wife is considering attending Florida Intl Univ. located west of Kendall I believe. We are considering relocating from Jacksonville to the Kendall area. Any recommendations pro or con in around The south west Miami region?

[jhlcomp]

Kendall is a suburb (for lack of a better description) of Miami. Well established, excellent shopping, restaurants, amenities, etc. Large Latin community. Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kendall,_Florida

Down side of Kendall is congestion and traffic. Coming from Jacksonville you will find the pace a little different and a more international flare. Real estate and/or rentals are higher than in Jacksonville.

I hope this helps.

[jbravo]

Originally Posted by paulroger

My wife is considering attending Florida Intl Univ. located west of Kendall I believe. We are considering relocating from Jacksonville to the Kendall area. Any recommendations pro or con in around The south west Miami region?

FIU is actually on 8th street and 122 ave in Miami, not Kendall. Can't see a single pro about it. Congestion, arrogance, aggressive in your face behavior. Actually, as an FIU professor said of Miami in 60 minutes: "It's a banana Republic...most commissioners are either under arrest or indicted...." [was true then] Campus is next to Sweetwater. On this forum's parent site in the top 100 lists there used to be a "city where English is spoken the least," Sweetwater was the first in the U.S. I believe. If that doesn't explain the area, I don't know what will.

[eaglecall]

Originally Posted by jbravo

FIU is actually on 8th street and 122 ave in Miami, not Kendall. Can't see a single pro about it. Congestion, arrogance, aggressive in your face behavior. Actually, as an FIU professor said of Miami in 60 minutes: "It's a banana Republic...most commissioners are either under arrest or indicted...." [was true then] Campus is next to Sweetwater. On this forum's parent site in the top 100 lists there used to be a "city where English is spoken the least," Sweetwater was the first in the U.S. I believe. If that doesn't explain the area, I don't know what will.

This is a better description of the Kendall area IMO. And as he says, FIU is North of kendall, closer to the city of sweetwater; I read a few years ago that sweetwater is the city with the highest percentage of foreign born people in the USA. 79% of the people of sweetwater were born mostly in central and south america; the remaining 21%, are their children, who by the way, are raised in spanish.

Back to the thread, Kendall area is a bad area; I mean, when you first come here is nice; you see new things, a different culture, the infrastructure is nice; but after a while living here, you discover the little secrets hidden in "that different culture"; bad education, poor family values, bad attitude, low professionalism, bad quality labor, probably you'll find out the worst drivers in history, drug dealing in the kendall area is out of control, illegal medicine practice, illegal aliens, traffic is disgusting, the area is way overpopulated and very expensive. In 5 square acres they build like 20 townhouses who are sold in the 300's. and those townhouses are around 1000 sq. ft., with doors, hallways and bedrooms where you have to be 5' tall to fit in.

I think yall be better off in some place like Gainesville. Myself, getting the crap out of here in one year.


For now, I think Americans should stay away from South FL, just because I care for them and I want the best for them. It hurts me to know that other people could suffer as I have suffered here frustrated and isolated in a freak world where you can't have friends and you can't have a peaceful life. My dream is to someday make a radical fix to the immigration disaster, regain control of South FL from a massive relocation by people from the north and turn this place back to the living paradaise that was before the 60's.

[Playball40]

I was born and raised in Kendall (yes, I do speak english). Actually it is one of the nicer suburbs in Miami. The growth and congestion are intense but I find that ALL of Miami is like that. It is an atypical big city because most major cities are slightly landlocked by size or terrain. Miami is not. It just continues to sprawl (which is destroying the remaining Everglades). It is sad. I do not care one bit for Florida anymore. (btw, I currently reside in Tampa and it is the same as Miami, imo)

[tallrick]

There's nothing to do in kendall after 11PM except hang around. The last fun place out there was Don Carter's Kendall lanes, ironically the first Kendall attraction from 1976. It was demolished to make way for....(what else) another shopping center. Kendall is pretty much a wasteland of tiny residences and strip shopping.

[blissblessed1]

I will move entirely from Miami before moving to Kendall....eeek.

[eaglecall]

Originally Posted by tallrick

There's nothing to do in kendall after 11PM except hang around. The last fun place out there was Don Carter's Kendall lanes, ironically the first Kendall attraction from 1976. It was demolished to make way for....(what else) another shopping center. Kendall is pretty much a wasteland of tiny residences and strip shopping.

That's true. I remember around 5 years ago there were still a couple of nice bars to go at night, like fat katz or Iguana Cafe for example. Now everything is destroyed. Kendall lanes was demolished to build a Staples. But before that, was already a gettho place from a long time.

[doggiebus]

So here is what happened to Kendall. In the 70's they started to build homes, which continued into the early 80's. What they forgot to add with the homes, was the infratructure like schools, shops, dining, major roads, etc. Then in the mid to late 90's they started to build schools and some stuff, along with more homes. So we are here today, and Kendall is over crowded, with the infraturure missing.

If you have ever played sym city, you know what happens to a place when it is missing parts of the infratructure. Kendall isn't the worst place suburb in Miami, but it isn't Pinecrest or Coral Gables. East Kendall (east of the 874) is much better than the rest of west Kendall, since it is closer to US1 and the highway. And the homes are are not exactly that cookie cutter look that the rest of Kendall has. If you end up renting there are lots of apartments in Kendall.

Has your wife thought about going to FAU instead of FIU? I would suggest looking into FAU.

[Angelrocks]

I would never ever live in Kendall. I live in Broward County, just 2 miles south of Boca Raton. Anytime I go to the Miami area I find that a majority of people have nothing. We have a corvette and whenever we drive around people stare at us like we are in a Presidential Limosine. Housing is overpriced. If you want to live in a cracktown neighborhood you will find homes run at least 200,000 or more. Now can you imagine living in a cracktown home for that price? We ran out of land in Miami-Dade and Broward County. Unless you want to move to Homestead you will pay a fortune for a single family home. You can always live in a condo but that still will cost. Property taxes are insane. Even if you rent your gonna pay through the nose. You could live in a low income apartment complex, but you wouldn't want to live there. Unless you are used to living in a low income neighborhood. I don't care how much money you make here. Everybody is complaining about property taxes, except people who bought there homes many years ago like myself. I bought my first home when I was very young. Property taxes don't cost very much for me. However if you rent plan on paying a huge amount or living in an unsafe neighborhood. Wouldn't you rather go to a college that was in an area where housing was more affordable? What about Tennessee or North Carolina. Or, stay in Jacksonville or Gainesville. You will have a better chance of affording a decent place to live. I can't complain...I bought my home dirt cheap 15 years ago, now it's worth a fortune!

You also have to consider the fact that Miami is so overcrowded. Ever try to get out of Miami during a hurricane watch or warning? Ha, you are in for a rude awakening. I remember Hurricane Wilma quite well. People couldn't get out and lines for gas were ten hrs. long. I couldn't find an open bank unless it was 30 miles away. The post office was close for almost two weeks and it was almost impossible to drive anywhere. We ran out of gas after a few days of driving around trying to find any type of supplies.

You think you got problems? Now get this...nobody could get to a bank or go to a post office. LOL...guess what how do you pay your bills? We had no phone service for weeks. Finally, we got in touch with a few of our creditors and ask them for a months extension. They granted a generous two months extension. Well, get everything in writing because I just checked my credit report. Ha, it says I was more than 60 days late on both of the bills where my creditors gave us an extension to pay due to the Hurricane conditions.

You want to talk about all the fallout from a cat. 3 hurricane? I have to try to convice my creditors, once again, that it was from Hurricane Wilma. They said they would get back with me in 30 days. Is this what you want to go thru? Come here and more than likely you will hate it. I can't wait to sell my house and move out of here. I went for 3 and a half days without a cold glass of ice water after Hurricane Wilma. I begged people for gasoline but nobody would budge.

Last year there was talk that perhaps a hurricane might hit South Florida. So, I ran to the nearest gas station to wait in a 2 hr. line. Right before I got up to the pumps they shut it. I was desperate for gas begging people to buy a eight of a gallon of gas from them because whoever was ahead of me ...they were filling all their gas cans and car tanks with the last of the gas. Nobody...not one person who bought gas would even let me buy an 1/8 of a gallon of gas. And some of these very same people were filling up their cars and gas cans. People were arguing and fighting over gas. It was a nasty sight. You will not be happy here! You will think this place sucks. I ran out of gas waiting in line trying to fill up, and that's how compassionate the people in South Florida are. I think if I was pregant and ready to give birth nobody would have given me any gas to get to a hospital. I really do think that's how evil those people were. Do yourself a favor and don't come here! If you do....don't say I didn't warn you cause it will be every man for himiself during these type of situations. And what makes it worse is you will still have to pay your creditors on time...Ha they will not care trust me!