South East FL vs. Atlanta

[luckysnap]

I have reconsidered my first response to your question. The answer to your question depends on what you consider "educated".

[Caleb Longstreet]

Originally Posted by Newyorker2

Hi all,

I also posted this thread on the ATL forum.

My husband and I are torn between moving to a lower cost of living place like Atlanta or enjoying the lifestyle of south Florida. We have 2 children a preteen and one in the 1st grade.

I am in human resources / office administration and he owns an automotive business. We have tried weighing the pros and cons but are still torn.

Pros for Atlanta:
Lower cost of living,MUCH more house for your money,4 seasons (which i really love), looks more like the north ( we are currently living in westchester county, ny), larger black educated population, more job prospects for me, A closer drive if my family wants to visit, Lower cost of living would make it possible for my family to join me if they wanted to move.

Cons of Atlanta
no family there, just a few friends, Not so great schools depending on where you live, TRAFFIC ( my husbands business puts him on the road 100% of the time, and i would also have to work inside the perimeter as well), Less opportunity for my husbands business ( this is in comparison to FL, in FL he can service businesses in Palm beach, Broward and Dade county, in ATL theres just ..ATL), Weather ( Atl has a lot of smog and was named the asthma capital of the world... I have asthma), Crime - of course that is everywhere. Not much character, seems like a lot of large homes but nothing else. The BLING factor.... housewives of ATL.. need I say more??? LANDLOCKED ( a big issue for us as we love the beach)

Pros of FL:
We have an increasing number of family that lives there, lifestyle ( the beaches, the parks, the attractions, cruises, boating fishing year round. Traveling up to Disney for the weekend or down to Miami for a girls night out. traveling inside of Fl), No state income tax, more business for my husband, winter weather. More physically active lifestyle. tropical fruits year round.

Cons of FL
Lack of job opportunities for me,house prices: taxes and insurance premiums off the roof, If there is another hurricane there is no saying how high insurance prices may go, also that might affect family joining me if they want to join us, constant heat, hurricanes, sucky schools, alligators, I hear that most everyone who lives in FL owns a gun ( MY BIGGEST CONCERN), bad/rude drivers, I hear the complaint about rude people but havent expereienced it, transient state, also the snowbirds during the winter months which makes the place more crowded, NO BASEMENTS. You can drive 6hrs and STILL be in FL. and if you are paying less than 500K, you can only afford an ugly home with zero lot size.

Ok so to wrap this up, we would look into moving to the Palm Beach Gardens/Jupiter area but I am concerned about not being able to afford the home that i want or enjoy the lifestyle for financial reasons. We invested in real estate in NY and now everything has taken a dive and we just want to stop the stress and go somewhere where we can be happy. i would HATE to have to move again...I LOVE ATL homes but i have expereienced nothing but boredom in ATL, if we picked ATL we would initially live in Rockdale county where our only friends are.

So the question is for those who have experienced both, or just live now in either place, please give us an idea of what to expect and which city would fit best into what we want. Let me know what you do for fun, and the life that you have expereienced in both places both good and bad. Fell free to point out some additional pros and cons.

If you have read this looong thread in its entirety... I THANK YOU.

Well, I can say first hand my real thoughts of both. I lived in Atlanta 83-89, moved to South Florida in 89 and came back to Atlanta in 97 and have been here ever since. Still go down to South Flahhhradahh for business....so, almost 20 years of real world experience on this one....

I will try to keep this brief because believe me, I can really, really elaborate on all the evil of living in South Florida.

South Florida
Pros: Warm in the winter, aside from that and the water, not much.

Cons: Crime, absolutely the nastiest people on the planet, tend NOT to pay their bills, "hondle" negotiate everything, especially after the sale. Home of the gold chain 50 something. Silicon Valley of the Southeast (as in boob jobs...hey, wait a minute, probably should have tossed that in the pros), combative personalities throughout. It's THE number one thing that will wear you out over time.

You have to wrestle with the pool guy, the lawn guy, the painter, the plumber, the electrician no matter what you are willing to pay. To be sure, these poor souls get leveraged out of business from Sal and the gang.....work with me...work with me....f'in nauseating after awhile...

It's the kind of place where you can spend $400 on a hotel room and still get treated like crap....the next time you are in Broward, do this for fun....go to the Burger King on Stirling off 95...the one just east of the hwy...ask how to get to I-95...not a flippin' one will be able to tell you...I still test that after 19 years...amazing......I no know....I only wurk jere....christ, you can lean out the drive through and HEAR the noise from the freeway....amazing...

If you ask a stranger for directions you are probably likely to get the reply "what's in it for me?" It's the kind of place a senior citizen will shove their basket in your way at the Pubix near Century Village and look at you like "what are you looking at?"....it's the kind of place where if one were to yell "STOP THIEF?" on a crowded sidewalk, 1/2 of the pedestrians would run....no kidding....

There's a reason why 1/2 of the episodes of COPS are filmed there....Between Broward County and Palm Beach, there's a non-stop supply of tanned, shirtless, nitwits getting jailed for busting the few remaining teeth (or, teef as they say down there) out of their spouses meth-addicted head live, before a studio audience....no one cares to carry insurance....too inconvenient I guess....

It's the kind of atmosphere where one person buys a house, grand parents move in, new babies galore all in the comfort and cozy comfort of a zero lot line for all the neighbors to enjoy...you know, the kind of house where there are 2 cars in the garage (owners), two in the driveway (kids), 2 in the apron of the driveway (kids of the kids) and two in the street....loading up the schools with 3 families of kids on one set of taxes....

The kind of place where "Brenda, Rhoda, Baaarbaraaah" the realtor is now busy justifying the 300K drop in the house you use to have to bid on 2 years ago....

Hate South Florida? More than a human can possibly imagine.

Atlanta
Pros: Relatively nice people who actually let you merge when you turn your blinker on. Low cost of housing. Homes in hte burbs are going for a 300-400K now which is a house relative to what one might find in Parkland for 600K or more...Lower taxes. My house is valued around 400K now even in a slow market and the taxes are about 5200 a year and I live in Alpharetta. Go a bit further and watch that go down a third or even a half (Forsyth County). Schools. Well, neigther state is legendary unless you call bad legendary but, in the good areas they are far superior to anything public down there. Period.

Cost of Living: Even with a 6% State Income tax, its still cheaper overall. There's a bit more to do and you are not bordered by a swamp on your left to get out and do it. True, no ocean nearby and I do miss that but after 20 years of dead on comparisons, keep it.

People make the difference and frankly, they are a bit more friendly than there. We all live in the human condition and it's just better here. It's the kind of place where a guy will still help a woman fix her flat. Down there, they are likely to slow down, roll the window down and advise you that you are holding up traffic as they peel away in the 95 degree heat to leave you where they counseled you....nice.

People tend to pay their bills here, the housing boom never bubbles up on speculators the way it did down there. There's less risk of losing it all down here as well.

Do yourself a favor, when you need to visit kids, it's only a 10 hour drive or a 1 hour, 20 minute flight to Ft. Lauderdale. Delta is ready when you are....Go Airtran, there IS nothing stopping you. Treat Florida like the rest of America, a great place to go eat up, drink up, and throw up as you leave that dump on your way back home.

Cons: Traffic. Repeat. Racial Tension, Repeat. But, with both, you can still drive far enough to get away from both. Downtown blows here too. The worst downtown on the East Coast. Want culture? Buy Yogurt. Nuff said.

All in all? Florida is a party pit, always was, always will be. Great place to visit, you just don't really really want to live there. It's God's waiting room. You can wait for him up here just as easily without the grief. Why buy misery?

Come South maam. Treat yourself right. Hope to greet you soon!

[BornInFL]

LOL!!! I know what you are saying! Still have family there, but not in Broward or Miami. In Orlando now, getting just like you described here now too.

Headed to either N Ga, Greenville SC, or back to the Asheville NC area... as a native Floridian, all I can say is... "old FL sure was nice while it lasted."

[TriMT7]

Originally Posted by Caleb Longstreet

Cons: Traffic. Repeat. Racial Tension, Repeat. But, with both, you can still drive far enough to get away from both. Downtown blows here too. The worst downtown on the East Coast. Want culture? Buy Yogurt. Nuff said.

All in all? Florida is a party pit, always was, always will be. Great place to visit, you just don't really really want to live there. It's God's waiting room. You can wait for him up here just as easily without the grief. Why buy misery?

Come South maam. Treat yourself right. Hope to greet you soon!

I'm sorry, but I really just cannot understand this sort of snobbery from someone from GEORGIA (really, GEORGIA?. Outside of "Atlanta"..READ: crime, racial tension, TRAFFIC, repeat.... it's pretty much a continuance of the same ignorant deep South bible thumping yeehaws and the descendants of their former slaves it was 100 years ago).

It's one of the few places that people dissatisfied with Florida Public Schools (ranked 30th in the nation) can actually find WORSE public schools (Georgia = 39):

//www.city-data.com/forum/flori...-rankings.html

It's also ranked "more dangerous" than MIAMI (which actually doesn't crack the list of top25 dangerous cities):

Safest and Most Dangerous U.S. Cities, 2007 — Infoplease.com


A round of applause for Atlanta everyone! Pack your bags, hit up AirTran, and hope the water supply can support even more of that god awful sprawl that is yes --- even WORSE than South Florida's ( given South FLorida's natural limits of the ocean and the everglades).

There's a reason why home prices continue to be "reasonable" in the Atlanta "Metro" area, and it's because there's a lot of land sprawling out from the center of the city. 2 hour drive and a five bedroom house for 250k. YAY!

All Atlanta has stopping it from continuing to spread like a cancer are hordes of well armed hillbillys angstfully lamenting the influx of urban cabin dwellers tearing up the mountainside in Blue Ridge to build their weekend getaway whilst driving up traffic and prices at the piggly wiggly.

[BornInFL]

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Your two best points:

"Racial Tension? Yes, it's here, but I never realized how all the South Floridian latinos sang Cumbayah with ever white dude and how all the BO fans in Liberty City, Overtown, The Grove, Sunrise East, Delray and Deerfield Beach East, Rivera Beach (Don't let the name fool you) were so "friendly"....yeah, you're right, people in South Florida just "all get along"
ROFLMAO!!!! over and over again.....repeat....


and... "Whoa! You mean I've been missing all the high points in South Flahhhraadddah all these DECADES? Yep, wow, how I miss the folks haggling me for every friggin' nickel and then refusing to pay the settled amount....what a cultural event...."

S FL is no longer what it used to be. I remember when people enjoyed it there, now almost everyone is angry, rude, and everything else you mentioned.

[luckysnap]

I have never seen a request for information on a place with the "most educated whites". Sounds a little uppity to me.

[faithfulFrank]

Old thread that has run it's course.
thread closed.