Orlando's a great place to live!! (Jacksonville, Miami: budget, wages, zoning)

[Petertherock]

At least that's what you would think by watching the Capital One Bowl game today. They kept having commercials telling everyone how great the schools are and how great the Universities are , how great the hospitals are, and how great the jobs are and how it's just a great city to live in. They said that you can be anything from an astronaut to a doctor to a scientist and you would never have to leave your home in Orlando.

It's easy to get caught up in that but the problem is when you look how Orlando is the murder capital of the USA now. Or at least close to it.

[Magnulus]

Originally Posted by Petertherock

At least that's what you would think by watching the Capital One Bowl game today. They kept having commercials telling everyone how great the schools are and how great the Universities are , how great the hospitals are, and how great the jobs are and how it's just a great city to live in. .

If Orlando is a great place to live, then alot of the rest of the country must be really crap. Actually, that's probably not far from the truth. I bet alot of people are moving down to Florida, not because it is such a great place to live, but out of desperation. There are alot of Central American and Carribean people who have moved in the last decade or so. They certainly didn't come here planning to be doctors or astronauts. You also have alot of people moving from Ohio, alot of Ohio chains are establishing in Florida, too (Donatos- I have to admit I like the pizza there). Ohio is pretty much the latest target of the rust belt, hit hard by free-trade-at-all-costs.

[**NoodLes**]

Did they mention all the $7/hr tourism jobs? Such a great place to live!

[Crane's Rooster]

It's a marketing campaign...what did you expect them to say? Orlando is a great place to live if you're willing to deal with the crime and low wages?

And we are not the Murder capital. We don't even top Florida.....Miami/Dade County and Jacksonville/Duval county had more murders than Orlando/Orange in 2007. Jacksonville/Duval also has a smaller population so the per capita murder rate is higher there also.

[Alphaman]

I think new orleans is the murder capital of the usa with a per capita 71 per 100,000.

[kinglouix]

Florida is a transient state. Most people are either too educated to consider living amongst the morons here and as a result they are successful up north. The black sheeps of the families who dropped out of school or couldn't cut it in the family business moved to Florida. Out of those people the dumbest 10% moved to the only Florida city without a beach or because of the existence of theme parks. The result is lot's of really dumb people. That is why you see a 23 story courthouse with only six elevators, the most tolls in any city, the worst traffic, the worst infrastructure, no zoning or setback laws, no highway connecting the airport from downtown, and interchanges that take a half mile or more to get you back where you started from.

[CURT]

Originally Posted by kinglouix

Florida is a transient state. Most people are either too educated to consider living amongst the morons here and as a result they are successful up north. The black sheeps of the families who dropped out of school or couldn't cut it in the family business moved to Florida. Out of those people the dumbest 10% moved to the only Florida city without a beach or because of the existence of theme parks. The result is lot's of really dumb people. That is why you see a 23 story courthouse with only six elevators, the most tolls in any city, the worst traffic, the worst infrastructure, no zoning or setback laws, no highway connecting the airport from downtown, and interchanges that take a half mile or more to get you back where you started from.

give me a break. this is just nuts.

[ucfjtm]

Originally Posted by CURT

give me a break. this is just nuts.

The dumbness part seems to invalidate the entire post. However, there's nothing nuts about this part:
"Florida is a transient state... you see a 23 story courthouse with only six elevators, the most tolls in any city, the worst traffic, the worst infrastructure, no zoning or setback laws, no highway connecting the airport from downtown, and interchanges that take a half mile or more to get you back where you started from."

Orlando grew far too fast for the infrastructure to handle it. Thankfully they've begun work to fix that I-4/408 interchange that it sounds like he's talking about, and 408 has been widened through much of downtown (but still needs another 2 lanes in each direction). My major gripe with traffic is that there is no highway loop, or at least a northern east-west highway connecting Oviedo/Winter Springs/Altamonte/Apopka. 408 is the only highway east-west through the town and to get from Oviedo to Maitland requires hiking across Red Bug Lake Road to Semoran to 17-92 to Maitland Blvd - it can take well over an hour to go 20 miles during rush hour. I could take 417 to 408 to I-4 to Maitland, but hitting I-4 means traffic is at a standstill, so it's not any faster either.

There is a way to get to the airport from the highway downtown, but it's not direct at all. I-4 down to 528, or 408 to 417 to 528. Semoran isn't that bad from 408 to the airport, unless you get carjacked in south Semoran like a friend of mine while leaving the airport. Got his car back, minus his wallet, cellphone, keys, half the interior of the car, and his luggage.

I can't imagine what it must be like to have a more restircted budget with tolls. I welcome all the tolls to keep enough people off the roads to at least let traffic flow at 5mph during rush hour. Imagine how bad it would be if 408 & 417 were like I-4.

[CURT]

Originally Posted by ucfjtm

The dumbness part seems to invalidate the entire post. However, there's nothing nuts about this part:
"Florida is a transient state... you see a 23 story courthouse with only six elevators, the most tolls in any city, the worst traffic, the worst infrastructure, no zoning or setback laws, no highway connecting the airport from downtown, and interchanges that take a half mile or more to get you back where you started from."

Orlando grew far too fast for the infrastructure to handle it. Thankfully they've begun work to fix that I-4/408 interchange that it sounds like he's talking about, and 408 has been widened through much of downtown (but still needs another 2 lanes in each direction). My major gripe with traffic is that there is no highway loop, or at least a northern east-west highway connecting Oviedo/Winter Springs/Altamonte/Apopka. 408 is the only highway east-west through the town and to get from Oviedo to Maitland requires hiking across Red Bug Lake Road to Semoran to 17-92 to Maitland Blvd - it can take well over an hour to go 20 miles during rush hour. I could take 417 to 408 to I-4 to Maitland, but hitting I-4 means traffic is at a standstill, so it's not any faster either.

There is a way to get to the airport from the highway downtown, but it's not direct at all. I-4 down to 528, or 408 to 417 to 528. Semoran isn't that bad from 408 to the airport, unless you get carjacked in south Semoran like a friend of mine while leaving the airport. Got his car back, minus his wallet, cellphone, keys, half the interior of the car, and his luggage.

I can't imagine what it must be like to have a more restircted budget with tolls. I welcome all the tolls to keep enough people off the roads to at least let traffic flow at 5mph during rush hour. Imagine how bad it would be if 408 & 417 were like I-4.

i agree mostly.
my reply to king loiux was geared towards his dumb people comment......I'd be way more willing to read his post if he didnt come off like one of the 10% he refers to.

[**NoodLes**]

They need to work on Sand Lake Rd. That street is HORRIBLE from about 2-6pm!!