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The thread about people moving out of Florida gave me the idea to write this one. How many of you have ever lived in a place that people tend to romanticize but you found it to be a less than ideal place to live? For example, I grew up in Montana and while it was a nice place to grow up as a kid, as an adult I went flat broke due to the very low wages and high cost of living. I moved to Wyoming and people here just can't believe I left Montana and its amazing scenery. Anyone else ever had a situation like this?
Florida is definitely a location that is romanticized and falsely (IMO) regarded as paradise, it can be a nice state to visit during certain times of the year, but unless you have tons of money and can come and go as you please, it ain't all that! Working class citizens struggle here and the heat, humidity, increasing crime, employment conditions and the general attitude of people here stinks to high heaven!!
This of course is my opinion based on my experiences and observations of having lived here for a very long (much too long) time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WyoEagle
The thread about people moving out of Florida gave me the idea to write this one. How many of you have ever lived in a place that people tend to romanticize but you found it to be a less than ideal place to live? For example, I grew up in Montana and while it was a nice place to grow up as a kid, as an adult I went flat broke due to the very low wages and high cost of living. I moved to Wyoming and people here just can't believe I left Montana and its amazing scenery. Anyone else ever had a situation like this?
Florida is definitely a location that is romanticized and falsely (IMO) regarded as paradise, it can be a nice state to visit during certain times of the year, but unless you have tons of money and can come and go as you please, it ain't all that! Working class citizens struggle here and the heat, humidity, increasing crime, employment conditions and the general attitude of people here stinks to high heaven!!
This of course is my opinion based on my experiences and observations of having lived here for a very long (much too long) time.
The people in western Montana and Bozeman in particular have bad attitudes. I don't think the crime rate seems to be going up. I've heard various reports about the employment situation. The climate was the only thing that was agreeable. Southwest Montana where I lived had better people but was not cutting it on the other factors mentioned. Montana is much like Florida. It's a great place to visit but unless you have money it's not a good place to live. Just the climate in Florida makes me like visiting but I could not live there either.
I really liked Florida. If I could handle that climate and didn't mind the population density I could have been happy there. There are some really beautiful parts of the state, once you get away from the cities, and I didn't find Tampa all that expensive or crime-ridden or unfriendly. The traffic can be pretty bad, though.
A lot of people seem to "fall in love" with Alaska based on short visits in ideal weather. Heck, I did too. Living here is different. There are a lot of things you don't have to deal with on vacation, and of course you don't have that same sense of discovering something new all the time when you live here. But I do love it here. I just wouldn't recommend it to most people I know. This town in particular, I feel like I want to brag about it and warn people away at the same time.
I always smile when people are amazed that I moved from the warm, green, and sunny South to Nebraska.
I grew up on the beaches of SC, but traveled extensively in the lower 48. The SC beaches have grey water; it isn't that pretty blue you see in pictures, and it stinks. Not the fresh tang of salt air but the smell of oily rotting dead things. The people range from extreme wealth to extreme poverty, and criminality as well as entitlement dependence are widespread and acceptable ways of life. From 11 year-olds having children to drug dealing at street corners in broad daylight, the overall acceptance of 'do whatever you want without consequences - someone else will pay for it' is nauseating. The same thing with Savannah, GA, Orlando, FL, and other places I've been in GA, SC, NC, and FL - between the "rich folkses" white collar crime and the "poor folkses" fighting desperately to stay poor, it is a symbiotic morass of wastefulness, lasciviousness, laziness, and purposeful and determined ignorance.
I enjoyed San Antonio, but I was young and poor there, and people pretty much left me alone. Columbus, OH, was fun and had a lot of nice people; the 1500-acre farm I worked on was beautiful and productive - but got sold out to a quonset-hut chicken-farm concern; it was very expensive to live there. Other property there was simply too expensive - and the laws didn't permit much freedom. Las Vegas is a big, beautiful bustling city - as long as you have money to spend; I enjoyed the in-yer-face attitude of "we do what we want, you do what you want". Albuquerque was pretty amazing too - but has since gotten more and more liberal and grasping.
Granted, most people don't want to live where I live and do what I do - they want and need people around them, they want and need their amenities, they want and need a nanny government who takes care of their every need. They look to move away from snow, blizzards, and tornadoes, not to them! They want to live where hunting and fishing costs thousands of dollars and nets them a short supply of small prey, not where the wildlife is up close and personal every day, where the flock of 30 turkeys or the herd of huge deer that wander by daily are considered nuisances. Which is just fine with me - other peoples' needs and demands keep them away from here, where property and the COL is cheap, where living is independent, where the cops and criminals alike know that property rights are sacred, where everyone open carries and no one cares. Where the hills roll on like endless waves on a huge green ocean, where huge waterfalls tumble into streams you can tube, kayak, or pull trout and bass out with hardly a ripple, where the water is fresh and pure and plentiful.
Flyover state? Not worth paying attention to? Flat, boring, and nothing but cornfields, hayfields, and cattle? You betcha. Keep right on believing that - and keep on driving, there's nothing to see here.
laziness, and purposeful and determined ignorance.
Are you sure you didn't live in western Montana? I have always heard people here in Wyoming complain about driving across Nebraska. I don't mind it during the summer, it stays nice and green long after our state has turned brown. But I'll let you have it since I'm a pansy when it comes to humidity.
Where I'm stuck right now, CA.
The beaches, LA, SF, and movie-land are all pounded into the skulls of everyone in other states so hard that they think they'll hit it big once they get over here.
Then I demoralize them about the COL and other restrictions in those areas and remind them that everyone else lives further inland and rather close together.
Give me a place that isn't so hyped up and I'll be glad to flaunt it.
Where I'm stuck right now, CA.
The beaches, LA, SF, and movie-land are all pounded into the skulls of everyone in other states so hard that they think they'll hit it big once they get over here.
Then I demoralize them about the COL and other restrictions in those areas and remind them that everyone else lives further inland and rather close together.
Give me a place that isn't so hyped up and I'll be glad to flaunt it.
People in Montana hype their own state up so much while being content being poor. If you leave it is like you left a commune.
Arizona. Yeah, it's a dry heat, but it's heat. And there are some amazingly beautiful spots. But for the most part it is dusty, dirty, hot, and scrubby. With horrible roads.
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