[nicolepsy]

hello everyone,
i will soon be leaving ohio (a place i have never felt comfortable) for florida but am confused about where to try to settle. is jax not tropical enough compared to orlando? i wouldnt want to end up anywhere that is similar to cincinnati. are there more banking jobs for my husband in jax or orlando? is pay better in jax or orlando? MORE IMPORTANTLY: i am so wanting a locale that would fit my personality better. i feel like a weirdo here in cincinnati. in my opinion, everyone is far too similar here (white, christian, conservative, roots in kentucky, satisfied with going out to eat and then a movie for entertainment and living in a cookie cutter subdivision, having the kiddos on a soccer team) and i desperately need more! there is absolutely nothing wrong with any of the above but it is not me and i feel so displaced. i grew up for a time in calf so that might be my problem. i dont have any tattoos or piercings nor am i a feminist lesbian or anything radical but at the same time i am not into any of the above mentioned "normal/typical" suburban things. i am attracted to anything unusual and my children are the same. my husband on the other hand is perfectly happy anywhere but needs to be able to find a normal banking job (he is a collection manager) thus my indecision about which place in florida would be best for us. i hope someone can throw some ideas at me. we will rent for the first year so almost anything goes which just makes the decision even harder for me. i thought about g-ville for a bit since they have a midwifery and an acupunture school (these are the kinds of things that interest me, new age/hippie type things is what i call them) but the job situation for my husband didnt look very good. thanks for reading my post. anything you can suggest (good or bad) would help alot! i just dont want to move and be stuck in the same situation i am now.

[Prichard]

I'll try to answer some of your questions.

is jax not tropical enough compared to orlando?

From my perspective (I'm an Orlando Native), Jax and Orlando look a lot alike. If by "tropical" you mean Palm Trees - both places have those. But, you don't get the real tropical foliage until you get into Ft. Lauderdale, Ft. Myers (on the West Coast) and south of there. So, I don't consider Orlando or Jax very tropical.

i wouldnt want to end up anywhere that is similar to cincinnati.

Well, neither city would be like anything in Ohio. Winters are very mild in Jax and Orlando - sometimes slightly cooler in Jax.

As far as pay - that all depends. I'd be hard pressed to find any noticeable difference in pay between Jax and Orlando - both cities are pretty comparable in that respect (same with Tampa). Some professional jobs pay slightly higher in Miami.

in my opinion, everyone is far too similar here (white, christian, conservative, roots in kentucky, satisfied with going out to eat and then a movie for entertainment and living in a cookie cutter subdivision, having the kiddos on a soccer team) and i desperately need more!

That probably describes Jax a little more than Orlando. Jax is has kept much more of its "Southern" culture than has Orlando.

i am attracted to anything unusual and my children are the same. my husband on the other hand is perfectly happy anywhere but needs to be able to find a normal banking job (he is a collection manager) thus my indecision about which place in florida would be best for us.

Broadly speaking, although all three cities have strong banking presence, Tampa is more known for Banking; Jax for Insurance; and Orlando for tourism, medical, and high-tech.

You might want to look at the Tampa - St. Pete area - that's really what you are describing.

[nicolepsy]

wow! thanks prichard. so you really think i am describing tampa/st pete?
that is very interesting to me! tampa/st pete is where i originally started looking when i made the decision to get out of ohio! somehow i veered here and there and maybe i should go back to where i started. it is like when you start out on a radio station and hate the song so you keep switching the channels to find something better and in the end you are back at the first station because there is nothing better. hee hee. BUT also, i figured with the hurricane risk there that we wouldnt be able to afford hoi there once we decided to buy a house. so tampa is more known for banking? very interesting! thank you for your help. i guess it is back to the tampa forum for me.

[Jax]

I don't think you'd like Jax...if conservative people and going to kids' sports games bothers you, this may not be your place. Prichard is right that Jax has more of a Southern feel. Maybe you'd like something in south Florida, like Miami?

[manc]

JAX is a southern city no doubt and conservative in views


I'm in st johns county next to JAX and it's a very consevative place, the county where I am is over 95% white, st augstine is I think 98% white you don't see any minorities at all unless you go out in the country where a few black small areas are

Churches here are getting built all over the place and you see signs everywhere saying things like jesus is over looking st augustiine or something similar, marriage is between man and a woman, etc etc


If you don't want consevativism , religion and old traditional values then JAX, st t johns county or even st augustine isn't a place where it seems to in with your view.

Florida is relativly conservative to the north states as well as we lived up there, more and more families are moving here to florida especially north florida who want their kids to grow how they did, reason why we moved here. old traditional values,

maybe california would be more what you're looking for.

[nicolepsy]

thank you jax for the miami recommendation but i think that miami would be toooo much! plus it seems that my husband would need to speak spanish in order to get a collection manager job (this is just from all the miami jobs that i have looked at). i hope i havent offended anyone by my post. going to a kid's sport game doesnt bother me at all but i dont have sporty children (they are more artsy creative drama types). also, i myself am white and voted for bush but i think because i spent some of my formative years in calf i am needing more diversity in all things. thanks again.

[manc]

if you need diversity then miami is the place and diversity brings other languages same as orlando tampa.

basically anything south of I4 is more leaning dems but north of I 4 is very conservative and not much diversity

diversity is other cultures, languages miami orlando tampa gives you that , northern florida won't it's the old america. speak english, white christian.

hope it works out but I feel northern florida and maybe florida is too traditional for you

[nicolepsy]

hmmm, well, florida it is (definitely). calf is out of the question as i have been there, done that and too expensive and too far away. i do have family in florida but none in calf. where would you find hippies or artists in florida (besides key west as my husband could not handle such a place)? i think my problem is that i am an artist at heart and am looking for others like me. i want everyone to know that im not some type of freak and that i feel confused because on the one hand i actually AM conservative in many many areas (most actually!). like i said i voted for bush and would again (will probably vote for guiliani this time), i am all for being tough on crime and am anti-abortion and if you want to own a gun then that's fine with me. i am just tired of the normalcy of suburban living. and this place called cincinnati ohio is well, there's nothing much going on here at all and i cant relate to most people here. seems the people that love it here are the ones who have never been anywhere else so they have nothing to compare it to. anyways, thank you for your help. i really really appreciate all your thoughts. it is a great help!

[manc]

nic
I know you're not weird



I understand where you're coming from, we looked for conservative places what fitted our agenda.

tell you the truth I really don't know any areas you want except the keys

I know daytona holds an artisty fair a few times a year but the town is not everyones cup of tea.

Best bet is to come down here and spend a couple fo weeks. Its what we did, drove around , asked locals and looked ion local papaers for events what fitted what we wanted

best of luck nic

Infact send a PM to me if you want and you come down and I'll be happy to help you out on the town I live

[riveree]

Wow. I'm not suprised by the above comments regarding Jax - like many cities, our reputation precedes us and it's not always accurate.

You can find aspects of the above in Jax, in some areas moreso than others, but it's not the whole story by far.

I moved to the First Coast from NYC, so I have a good pulse on "different". I've also spent a good deal of time in St. Augustine since I was a kid in the 70's and moved down full-time from NYC appx a decade ago. I spent the first few years in St. Aug, then moved to Jax where I am now.

From what you describe, yes, on the whole, you would not like St. Augustine, nor would you like Clay county (Orange Park...the most conservative of our region IMO).

What you WOULD like in Jacksonville are areas such as:

The Beaches (Jax, Atlantic & Neptune): The Beaches are not only beautiful, but fun and there is a very cool, hip beach culture going on.

San Marco: 1920's neighborhood with a good-sized town square (San Marco Square) filled with boutiques, top-rated restaurants, galleries, theaters, etc.

Riverside: Riverside is an urban neighborhood with a center called "Five Points" that is more edgy than San Marco - think "outsider art".

Springfield: Urban neighborhood going through revitalization, strong arts culture.

These are just a couple of our "non-cookie-cutter" neighborhoods.

Sure, there are a lot of churches here and there is a percentage of the population that is very church-focused, but you will meet plenty of people who are not (none of my friends are).

Politically, there are more registered Democrats in Jax than Republicans, so the myth is busted that we are a "red" city.

Tropical? Compared to Ohio? Absolutely ! Jax and Orlando are in the same basic temperate hardiness zone (zone 9), so the weather is similar with one major caveat: we have the ocean . So, the air moves here, there is a breeze and in high summer it is a bit cooler here. If you garden, you can fill your yard with tropical plants. Thanks to global warming, your option for tropicals is ever-widening . You'll see plenty of palm trees in Jax, but our natural areas are more filled with oaks, pines and magnolias and palmettos (small native palms).

For jobs, it is right up your husband's alley - banking is one of our big industries here and growing. Fidelity recently opened here, and we already have Wamu, all the Citis (Citibank, Citicard, CitiStreet...) - you name the bank, they probably have a center here. you'll find a lot of people in Jacksonville who are working for banks in the mortgage departments, customer service and collections. We are known as a financial town - banks and insurance .

I'm not knocking Orlando, plenty of people love living in Orlando, Tampa could be a good choice as well, I like to visit both, but I'd choose Jax any day over them.

Best of luck Nico, hope I was able to provide another perspective, feel free to PM me .