I live in Ft. Lauderdale. Lived in Jax for a time as well. Frequently travel to Orlando, Tampa, and Tally...
- South Florida is completely different from the rest of Flawda. South Florida is like New York south, and Flawda is basically southern Georgia.
- Housing market got creamed badly. Even dinky 2/1 homes in awful neighborhoods(i.e...black...lets not beat around the bush) were going north of $400k. Now they go for a tenth of that in many cases. I rented during the housing boom, then snapped up two homes when everything crashed.
- Gated communities everywhere. You'll be in one beautiful neighborhood one minute, then cross the street, and you'll be in a dump the next with completely different rules.
- Traffic is bad, horrendous. Awful drivers down here. Gas be damned, but I drive a 3" lifted Ram Quad Cab and an H2 Hummer. I'd rather be safe than break my back from one of these shitboxes with a fartcan muffler driving around like crazy hitting people.
- There is a brain drain down here, in general. Many professionals are going to places like Denver, Seattle, and DC. But the weather and proximity to the beach is tough to beat. The city is fighting hard to keep professionals here.
- The weather, and gardening. I transformed my backyard into a microgarden. I grow passion fruit, papaya, sarguelas, mangos, pomegranate, limes, and lichee. Ive also planted collard greens, peanuts, lemon grass, and sweet potatoes to success. Its nice to be able to grow just about anything.
- The neighborhoods are hilarious. You'll see in many places where there are a ton of dinky 2/1 homes with chain link fences. Black people walking around everywhere....but go inside these neighborhoods and you will find many big, nice homes on much bigger lots next to the dinky homes.(I will freely admit, I do reside in a home in a similar situation). The large, cookie-cutter homes which do look nice, are sequestered inside of gated communities where you have to pay an expensive HOA fee and have literally NO yards.
