Are you looking to move to Orlando? One word: Don't! (Boca Raton: crime rates, houses)

[blueoktober]

Originally Posted by SinDonor

I guess you didn't read my other posts in this thread.

I have been shot at leaving my hockey rink at 9pm on a Thursday in St Cloud. I had a friend in Thornton Park who's house got broken into and robbed while she was in bed, hiding under her sheets (praying she didn't get raped as well). I had a good friend, who is a higher-up at Disney, and his girlfriend get shot at randomly while they were in their car leaving a Magic game (with a nice bullet hole in the passenger side head rest, almost killed the girlfriend). And for the finale, I had a teammate of mine from my hockey team spend a week in a coma (and a few months in phys-therapy) after getting beat down by 6 thugs in the Central Ave parking lot, eventhough the cops were 3 floors below.

This all happened within the last 3 years in the safe-haven you call Orlando. Keep dreaming if you think it's safer there than most cities. Stats don't lie. Orlando is in the top-10 most violent crime cities in the USA and it's getting worse every year. Most of the people leaving O-town are good people looking to get away and find better jobs near less crime. The scumbags are staying put.

You must have the worst luck in the world t hen. I live 1 block from Lake Davis - less than 2 blocks from Thornton Park. I look at my crime stats all the time and can tell you that the area is one of the safest in the city. I cannot STAND people who do not live in the area always talking about the crime and how bad it is downtown. It just simply ISNT.

Why aren't all the things you talk about reported to the news? I live downtown I know about things that happen - where are the news reports? Is this something that is being swept under the rug???

Why were you shot at? There are NO random shots in Orlando, it's always about something...please tell me, what did you do to get shot at?? In St. Cloud (of which I lived for 2 years when I first moved to Orlando). That Ice rink is nowhere near ANYTHING bad. I am sorry to call you out, but I just don' buy it.

Why did your friend get beat by 6 thugs? Thugs dont travel in groups that large if they are mugging - they only do that if they are getting someone back. Was he being a smug ass to someone and get his tail kicked?


I am dropping out of this because you have these wild stories that cannot be proved and I have no interest in proving them. You are just one in a million that come on here and try to frighten people with these horror stories that 99.999999999999999999% of people in Orlando who dont do drugs or go looking for prostitutes NEVER SEE. Like I told the other person, just leave already. Good lord. I will enjoy my safe downtown neighborhood and enjoy dinners out at night on Orange Ave or in Thornton Park and be happy with my life - go live somewhere you can do that too.

And PS: Orlando is 18 in violent cities where it fell from number 10 last year.

[DailyJournalist]

Originally Posted by blueoktober

You must have the worst luck in the world t hen. I live 1 block from Lake Davis - less than 2 blocks from Thornton Park. I look at my crime stats all the time and can tell you that the area is one of the safest in the city. I cannot STAND people who do not live in the area always talking about the crime and how bad it is downtown. It just simply ISNT.

Why aren't all the things you talk about reported to the news? I live downtown I know about things that happen - where are the news reports? Is this something that is being swept under the rug???

Why were you shot at? There are NO random shots in Orlando, it's always about something...please tell me, what did you do to get shot at?? In St. Cloud (of which I lived for 2 years when I first moved to Orlando). That Ice rink is nowhere near ANYTHING bad. I am sorry to call you out, but I just don' buy it.

Why did your friend get beat by 6 thugs? Thugs dont travel in groups that large if they are mugging - they only do that if they are getting someone back. Was he being a smug ass to someone and get his tail kicked?


I am dropping out of this because you have these wild stories that cannot be proved and I have no interest in proving them. You are just one in a million that come on here and try to frighten people with these horror stories that 99.999999999999999999% of people in Orlando who dont do drugs or go looking for prostitutes NEVER SEE. Like I told the other person, just leave already. Good lord. I will enjoy my safe downtown neighborhood and enjoy dinners out at night on Orange Ave or in Thornton Park and be happy with my life - go live somewhere you can do that too.

And PS: Orlando is 18 in violent cities where it fell from number 10 last year.

Blame the victim

[ngrome]

Originally Posted by blueoktober

Have you been to Chicago? I lived there for 10 years and let me tell you about the traffic. While attending Columbia College downtown, I cannot tell you how many nights I couldnt take 290 back to the burbs because it had been shut down...why?....because there were people at the Forest Park L stop shooting randomly at cars and killing people.
One time I was with some friends driving downtown from Naperville to go to the Sony Store on Michigan Ave to pick up a friend for a birthday party. We had put balloons all over the car and even on the bumper. While sitting in bumper to bumper traffic, some thugs behind us started ramming into the back of the car popping the balloons!

I have seen people stop dead cold on 294 and back up an "on ramp"

I dont know where you get your information, and again, I LOVE CHICAGO (my fave place on Earth) but the traffic is much worse than it is here.

I went to the Field Museum of Art, The Art Institute, The museum of science and industry more times than I can count. You know what? It gets boring after about the third time. What else is there to see? Chicago has ethnic neighborhoods...yes...Orlando really doesnt. That doesnt make a city to me.
I used to take a bus at 5am in Naperville (from October to May it was usually freezing), get on a Metra, ride for an hour into the city, walk 6 blocks to a job in the sub zero weather. I would get to work at 9. I did the same in the evening although I had an express train and I would get home at 7PM. 5am to 7PM for a 9-5 job. $200 a month to do that. No thanks...my 15 minute commute from downtown to Altamonte works just fine.

I would go see concerts at the Chicago Theater and also up in Edgewater to the Vic.... I would go to the Opera and theatre quite a bit. Guess what? You can only do that so much. Chicago IS on a large body of water and the 6 months of the year that the water temp is above 40 degrees I would go to it sometimes. However, there are reports that can tell you just how polluted that lake is. It's horrible.

Comparing Chicago, a city that was built with an infrastructure to be a BIG CITY from the get-go to Orlando which was just about as big as Huntsville, AL 20 years ago is a stupid comparison. Orlando was never meant to be a city like that. So all of the people who fled down here to find paradise found that Orlando WASNT paradise. It was Orlando. But what happened was, prices went up, crime went up, sprawl went everywhere to accommodate all you new people and now you want to leave because you brought all the crap with you. LEAVE. I am not being rude here, but seriously, just leave. Leave it for the people that enjoy it. YOU made Orlando in your head a city that it never was....not the city itself. It isnt trying to be anything. It's just trying to accommodate all the thousands of people fleeing their states to come find a place that just didnt exist to begin with.

I grew up outside of Chicago and went to school downtown. Are you from IL? Seems like you've experienced enough of it yet speak of the people who migrated down here as if you were a native Floridian. Yes, there are many things to blame those who came down here for Orlando's problems, but don't classify all of us as crap (as you say, without being rude). You notice test scores of many of the public schools have gone up since the migration of people from up north? Do you attribute that to better schools and teachers? Did all of the kids in Florida suddenly become smart? When I moved down to Orlando years ago, the public schools were awful, as well as the quality of teaching. I spent more time teaching my kids math than what they should have been learning in school. We had to buy our own supplies and our public library system is, and still is, Barnes & Noble as the public library system doesn't compare to even those in the suburbs of IL.

Yes, Chicago has lousy traffic, but I contend that for the kind of metro area Orlando is, it shouldn't be having the same problems. The numbers don't lie, look at the traffic deaths and crime per capita or considering the population density.

Ok, let's stop comparing downtown of both areas, and look at the outlying communities. If you compare the suburban communities, it doesn't compare. The Orlando metropolitan area has developed in this urban sprawl because of the northern migration and influence, which was good for some cases, but it's not going to be like the Florida we moved into years ago, and don't think it ever will be again. Yes, those people in the Orlando metro areas, particularly East Orlando, drive and behave as if they were still in New York. Have you driven on 50/Colonial lately? That place is horrible, it's as bad as some of the streets in downtown Chicago. I don't know about you, but I haven't seen street racers in downtown Chicago like I have all over Orlando.

Everyone talks about the charm and grace of Winter Park. That kind of setting is par for the course such as in Naperville, Downers Grove, Darien, Westmont, and other IL suburbs.

I'll tell you what Orlando and Florida needs in general to continue to keep up with the growth and maintain infrastructure. It needs State and Local taxes, and needs to dedicate those funds to those and to education. With the state budget crisis the way it is, how is it that a surplus built up by Jeb Bush is all of a sudden blown away with Charlie Crist in a relatively short period of time?

In the meantime, yes, we plan to leave, and we're looking forward to it.

[Quemonius]

I don't live in Orlando but my neices do because they attend/attended UCF. I have visited them 3-4 times for about a week each. I can only take a week. What irritates me the most is not only the traffic but the tolls for locals. I can understand tolling tourists but geesh to go anywhere you must have a cup full of change or that automatic toll thingy velcroed to your windshield. Irritating! If you try o avoid the toll roads be prepared to be stuck in traffic for an insane amount of time but in some places there are only one lane roads in wither directions with only one light every mile! So...it can take forever for you to even to reach an inersection. Another thing I noticed about Orlando is...their downtown sucks...other than Paradise Island down by Disney or whatever it is called there isn't much of a nightlife unless you are a tourist. I never had a desire to go to Disney and so life as a local life seems pretty boring. I went to that Lake Eola park near downtown. That is so not a park nor a lake...it's a pond. The historic homes surrounding the park are nice...but that's about it. I can't think of anything remotely interesting there....oh...the flea market. It's like the city has "no soul". That's the description I finally came up with after my fourth visit. The neighborhoods...you can't find them...the schools you can't find them...they are all enclosed behind walls or segregated in some way and so as you drive down a main street all you see are businesses. It's strange not to see families, bigwheels, or anything that screams "someone lives in this house" just from driving down the road. Orlando is just strange to me.

[luvthatmouse]

Originally Posted by blueoktober

Sorry but I don't buy that Celebration is so bad. In fact I googled robbery/Celebration/Fl/Jewelry and found one robbery this year and the suspect was caught......but it wasnt at a jewelry store. This again is just another in a long line of people on this board making Orlando out to be something it's not. Not to be rude, but people who pay millions of dollars for a home and tens of thousands in property tax would NOT stand for a robbery three times in the middle of the day. Give me a break.

I live in the supposedly horrific downtown area and even down here we dont have Publix and Jewelry stores getting robbed. People make their own realities sometimes I think and the more you make it a bad place to live in your head the worse it seems out in the real world.

I too wish the people from the North who hate it here would leave so Orlando could possibly become even better.

First of all I do not hate Orlando or Florida. I like it very much and that is why I moved here in the first place It HAS changed though. Just like many other places. Our country has been in a downward spiral for years.

I called HH Jewelry store in Water Tower Place in Celebration to ask a question the other day. One of the owners answered the phone and said "I am sorry I can not talk right now we have just been robbed again." (It was the middle of the day.) I said isn't this like the 3rd time the past year and she said "yes, it is." The first time I knew it was robbed because I drove past as the police were surrounding the store with several police cars and guns drawn! I have also been in Joes Crab Shack in Water Tower Place (Celebration) while the police had guns drawn in a standoff. They told us all to get away from the windows of the restaurant and would not let anyone leave! This is a nice area!

Publix (on the end of I Drive off 192-our closest) has been robbed several times this year. Call and ask them if you don't believe it. They pay a security guy to stand outside now.

I have NO reason to make these things up. We have been trying to sell our place here My parents say I am crazy to even say things like this on message boards- just tell everyone life is great and beautiful here in Florida and we will sell our place faster! I am not like the desperate realtors here in sunny Florida though. I think people should know what they are getting into. Esp. people with families. Maybe Orlando is still better than where they came from!

[Jonotastic]

complainers will be complainers and will never be able to find happiness else whereIt's like when you are at Disney World and there is a couple screaming at each other, thinking going on a vacation solve their issues, people don't realize it's YOU. I've lived in many places and have always made each place home and found good in every place. If someone complains no matter where they are, you have to think where the problem is.

[Wilshire81182]

Originally Posted by Jonotastic

complainers will be complainers and will never be able to find happiness else whereIt's like when you are at Disney World and there is a couple screaming at each other, thinking going on a vacation solve their issues, people don't realize it's YOU. I've lived in many places and have always made each place home and found good in every place. If someone complains no matter where they are, you have to think where the problem is.

I see tons of miserable people at theme parks. It is kind of ironic.

[BornInFL]

"I'd get the heck out of Orlando if I could, but I have to wait til my kids finish high school first in a few years. I moved here over 10 years ago and saw the migration and urban sprawl. Unfortunately, the infrastructure could not support it. Traffic sucks and people drive like idiots. I guess they never heard of a turn signal or proper distance between cars, let alone a safe driving speed. Why are people in a rush to get to nowhere? People have gotten more rude, and though there is great diversity, the mix just isn't that good with the local natives and those who migrated over here who brought there NY or South FL mentally with them. I mean, they pull off to the side or block traffic to pick up and drop off people when they could just pull into a parking lot. Isn't that what the sunshine and supposedly lovely weather is about, so you can stroll and take your time?"

Lol, omg man! A perfect example of the mentality here in Orlando. Many more thigs to complain about, but this is a good point and couldnt have said it better.

PS- I am a native of FL myself, but just wanted to add that I have met a few FL natives in Orlando, and most of them are friendly.

[BornInFL]

"but the people I see leaving - or planning to leave - are actually the type of people any city would want to stay!"

I believe this to be correct. Neighbors that we liked, spoke English, took care of their lawn, waved "hello" are leaving and being replaced by folks that I would rather not live around.

[BornInFL]

"a fortunate minority family from the Bronx moves down here in Orlando and slaps down $250K cash for a decent 4-bedroom home over 2000 sq. ft because they were able to sell some primo property or their brownstone up in NY for half a million dollars. So they buy their house, with enough cash left over to buy nice cars or laugh all the way to the bank. That will last them for a while until they need to find jobs for sustenance, but at least their home is paid for, and maybe they don't need to work. I don't blame them for the fortunate circumstance they got out of their home, but I don't think their kids, particularly their teenagers, appreciate what they got, and they have this attitude about them that some got about their parents, from the "me-first" to the "I'll take your parking spot just because" or "I own the road" mentality."

Another good post, and I know exactly what you mean and who your are talking about. I see it everyday.