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Hello all, is there anyone that is familiar with Palm Beach, Broward, and Dade counties that can make some comparisons between the cities in each area? Please describe the parallels between the various cities if at all possible. I'm familiar with Broward and Dade but not Palm Beach county. Thanks in advance for all of the comparisons.
Hello all, is there anyone that is familiar with Palm Beach, Broward, and Dade counties that can make some comparisons between the cities in each area? Please describe the parallels between the various cities if at all possible. I'm familiar with Broward and Dade but not Palm Beach county. Thanks in advance for all of the comparisons.
Palm Beach County is like the giant suburb of Miami and Ft. Lauderdale. It's nice over here, but there's no large city to kinda represent it, like Broward (Ft. Lauderdale) and Dade (Miami), and so it kinda gives the impression of a large, sprawled out suburb. West Palm Beach is the biggest "city" and it's fairly small, and some areas feel almost dead, like a ghost town. It's more of an area for the rich, retired elite from up north, with some supposed ghettos thrown in to the mix here and there. It's nice, but life is alot more slower paced and kinda boring sometimes compared to Broward or Dade areas.
Location: Palm Beach County. Where people get murked by the grocery store.
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Miami-dade is definately the most interest of the three counties with alot to do, a large downtown area, and south beach and all of that. Broward i find is a bit lost in the 80's and 90's. Idk its just the feel i get whenever im down there. Palm Beach is a much more boring county especially for a young person. There is almost nothing to do here unless you have some real cash to throw at a day of fun. I'd say 65-75% of the teenagers here at least smoke marijuana because of the boredom. Boynton is small and there is really nothing to do except go to the mall or the beach, and you don't wanna travel to far west of the beach or to far east of the mall. Boca is lame and everybody there for the most part is snobby. Lake Worth has nothing to do except the beach(dirtiest beach in the county) and maybe get something to eat downtown, but other than that youre just likely to get robbed. West Palm and Palm Beach have the most to do. West Palm is the biggest city in PBC. With an incorporated pop of 107000 and an unincorporated pop of about 250000. Theres the Rapids water park, downtown & muvico and what not and clematis has the ultra lounge, and various other night clubs. they have clematis by nights on thursday downtown. palm beach is probably the 2nd or 3rd nicest beach in PBC next to jupiter/juno or boca. Theres many nice parks (such as dreher, howard, south olive, and mary brandon)but you wouldnt wanna go to any of them north of banyan blvd(pleasant city park, goodmark park). If youre into illegal substances you can find just about anything from almost anybody under the age of 25, especially north of banyan. THe norton musuem of art is nice which is just south of downtown. and antique row from southern & dixie hwy to okeechobee & dixie has alot of old fashion shops and resturants.
Palm Beach County is like the giant suburb of Miami and Ft. Lauderdale. It's nice over here, but there's no large city to kinda represent it, like Broward (Ft. Lauderdale) and Dade (Miami), and so it kinda gives the impression of a large, sprawled out suburb. West Palm Beach is the biggest "city" and it's fairly small, and some areas feel almost dead, like a ghost town. It's more of an area for the rich, retired elite from up north, with some supposed ghettos thrown in to the mix here and there. It's nice, but life is alot more slower paced and kinda boring sometimes compared to Broward or Dade areas.
haha--Can't say I exactly agree with you on that one, Banx.
I would agree that Southeast Florida, from at least the Jupiter area in the north to the Homestead/Florida City area in the south, is like one giant suburb with urban areas of varying sizes thrown into the mix, BUT, I do not at all agree that West Palm Beach doesn't have its own identity, and there's an unusually large number of people in the West Palm area (and Palm Beach County in general)--oddly large, in my opinion--who hardly ever go near Ft. Lauderdale, much less Miami. Given that, it doesn't make sense to say that it functions like a suburb of Ft. Lauderdale and/or Miami, in my opinion. PBC is also its own media market, centered on WPB, with its own network television stations, its own major newspaper, etc. Ft. Lauderdale also has its own major newspaper, but receives Miami television stations (although I wouldn't say that it functions as a suburb of Miami either).
The urban areas in Southeast Florida are relatively small. I often say that most of it is a "suburb in search of an urb". In that respect, it bears a lot of resemblance to the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area. This also makes it a major project to do what the initial post of this thread asks for, as Southeast Florida is primarily made up of tens of suburban neighborhoods, most with a unique "feel".
Again like the greater LA area, and for the same reasons of massive suburban sprawl with not much of a cultural focus on the smallish urban centers, Southeast Florida has a "car culture". Folks do not walk most places they want to go. It's just too far to walk in most cases. So that contributes to the "ghost town" feeling, compared to cities like New York City and Chicago.
While there is certainly a large number of rich people in South Florida, a large number of retired folks, and at least an equal number of poor--there are more working class and middle class folks. It's just that maybe people do not notice them as much. Probably because they're also working and/or middle class, but also because you don't take drives by the ocean oohing and ahing at their mansions, and you don't drive through their run-down neighborhoods (usually on the way to ooh and ah at the mansions) feeling frightened of them. But they're the bulk of the folks living in those tens of suburbs in search of an urb.
As for pace, that depends on the person really. There's just about as much to do in Palm Beach County as there is in the other two counties (even if some of PBC's analogous stuff is smaller, like the zoo, the science museum, etc.) . . .
Palm Beach County is like the giant suburb of Miami and Ft. Lauderdale. It's nice over here, but there's no large city to kinda represent it, like Broward (Ft. Lauderdale) and Dade (Miami), and so it kinda gives the impression of a large, sprawled out suburb. West Palm Beach is the biggest "city" and it's fairly small, and some areas feel almost dead, like a ghost town. It's more of an area for the rich, retired elite from up north, with some supposed ghettos thrown in to the mix here and there. It's nice, but life is alot more slower paced and kinda boring sometimes compared to Broward or Dade areas.
You must live in the suburbs because there are plenty of built up, "city like" areas of West Palm Beach. In fact West Palm Beach is estimated to be 250,000 people in size while Fort Lauderdale is 183,606 people - so Palm Beach County's big city is actually much larger than Broward's! All three counties are similar in this respect (though Dade is by far the most "city-like") where there's one main city and mostly suburbs in the rest of the county.
Also, the middle class here is much larger than in Dade so it's not just for the rich. There's much less of an income gap here than in Miami, though Broward is more balanced than Dade as well.
In terms of enjoyment, however, Dade is at the top of the scale. Dade has the most to do and is the most "fun" out of the three. I'd put Palm Beach below Dade and Broward towards the bottom because Broward doesn't have the same culture as Dade and is much busier than Palm Beach.
Most of the upscale areas here are primarily white (though there are some exceptions, such as in Greenacres, where even the nice suburban portions are mostly made up of South Americans). The middle class areas are racially diverse with all types of people while the lower income areas are mostly either black or Hispanic (the two groups usually have their own neighborhoods, with some old time whites occasionally randomly mixed in with the barrios). Also, the county likes to hide the bad areas from tourists - anytime there's a bad area out in the open on a main road to a touristy spot it's either covered by walls or shrubbery.
Palm Beach County also has some of the wealthiest cities (city of Palm Beach) and poorest (Belle Glade is arguably worse than many of the bad Dade areas). Like Manny561 said the most interesting part of it is West Palm Beach (where I live) though the suburbs can be quite uninteresting and generic. Sometimes the poor and wealthy neighborhoods are right next to each other.
You must live in the suburbs because there are plenty of built up, "city like" areas of West Palm Beach.
Naw man, Im right in downtown West Palm Beach, not far from the Flagler Bridge to Palm Beach. I dunno, besides CityPlace and Clematis St., there doesn't seem like a whole lot to do over here. I haven't been here too long though, so prolly just haven't found the right "scene" yet.
And yeah it's true, you can be in one of the wealthiest areas in the county and turn a corner, or cross a street, and be in one of the worst areas of the city. It's weird, I never could figure out why it's like that.
Hey Banx, that lack of a buffer zone between affluent areas and areas with concentrated poverty and crime is a common feature of Broward and Dade too (more so in Dade though). Maybe it's a southeast Florida thing.
Hey Banx, that lack of a buffer zone between affluent areas and areas with concentrated poverty and crime is a common feature of Broward and Dade too (more so in Dade though). Maybe it's a southeast Florida thing.
Not at all common in Broward. The buffer zone is between University Dr and the turnpike and made up of working class neighborhoods, then once you get to the core of it between the turnpike and 95, you slowly fade into a better area again and definitely see a transition. Actually the only areas I can think of without a real buffer zone would be Palm Aire in Pompano Beach and Miramar, which borders on Miami-Dade County. Drive down any major east-west street in Broward County (Sunrise Blvd, Pines/Hollywood Blvd, Griffin Rd, Commercial Blvd, etc) and you will see exactly what I am talking about. There are "nice" areas mixed in amongst that, but not really "affluent" ones and when there are there are usually buffer zones within that. Broward is very socioeconomically segregated.
For example, drive down Sunrise Blvd from the beach on. It's pretty nice until you hit US1. Once you go east, there is a "sleazy area" that you pass through before you slowly transition into the absolute worst that Broward County has to offer. Once you get west of I-95, you are well in the thick of it. Once you are west of State Road 7, and you transition into a more and more working class neighborhood (the further west you get the better) until you cross west of University Dr, where the street passes through anywhere middle class to affluent for miles. The pattern is the same in virtually every part of the county.
Compelled to reply, what's the corridor between US 1 and I-95 like in Southeast Broward? I'm specifically interested in the neighborhood in East Hollywood.
Re "things to do", I always find that vague, by the way.
The way I tend to think of it is something like "things someone (though I usually primarily think about what I) would do for leisure activities", but when I think of it that way, I can't think of many things that one can do in Dade County that one can not do elsewhere (although I can think of a few minor things, but the same goes for the other counties--each has a few minor, unique things).
For example, I think (because of the kinds of things I like to do):
Hiking - check for all three counties. There are plenty of places to hike in each, and given the geography of Florida, the hiking is similar in all three counties.
Museums - check for all three counties. They all have science museums, history museums, art museums, etc. Palm Beach County doesn't have an aquarium that's just an aquarium, but there is an aquarium section of the science museum (which, if memory serves, is the same for Broward). On the other hand Miami doesn't have a botanical garden quite like the Morikami, the other counties don't have anything like Broward's Butterfly World, etc. So I think they're all fairly even on this one.
Shopping - check for all three counties. They all have good malls, all the "big box" stores, etc.
And so on . . .
The thing is, I can't think of many kinds of activities that one can do in one of the counties that one can not do in the others, and for the few I can think of, there are unique things in the other counties too. Maybe it's because there are kinds of things that people like to do (whatever they consider "something to do", "fun", etc.) that I'm overlooking because I don't usually do those things, but what would they be?
Any idea what folks might have in mind that you can do as a leisure activity in Dade that you can't do in Palm Beach County or Broward? (Or Broward activities you can't do in Palm Beach County?) etc. Let's see if we can match up types of activities or provide similar unique substitutes for the things that are really unique.
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