Poor Florida, Twas Good To Know You

Too expensive now.

Yeah, that's the reason.

This season’s Helena & Milton storms will likely continue the new trend. People I know in Tampa are saying there is a lot of talk about giving up and leaving.

If all of the New York transplants leave, there will be no one left!

It will be impossible to insure your home in another couple of years. Even now, there is an insurance crisis. And it is too hot most of the time now. I personally don't understand why people want to live in a place where they spend most of their time in an air-conditioned house because it is too hot to go outside. That is the reason I don't understand Palm Springs.

It's a slow process, but the rising cost of living and the increasingly crazy weather may finally have an effect. Some people will wind up in equity traps--no one will want to buy their property at full market value, esp. if it's near water.

Yep. The New Yorker put up a good piece on the coastal/floodplain home insurance crisis a few days.

insurance will soon become unavailable for all but the very rich there

DeSantis is betting everything on Trump winning and the Rs taking over Congress. Once there, one assumes, they'll figure out a way to stuck Uncle Sam with the cost of insuring all the mega mansions the Trumpers built on swamps. They also want the Fed to be on the hook to totally rebuild everything every couple of years as hurricanes come through and destroy everything.

If Kamala wins, however...

Why don't any of the fucking monster hurricanes hit Mar-a-Lago with that orange fucker in it and wipe that whole mess off the face of the earth? Why, I ask you?

R10 it doesn’t seem fair! There was a devastating Cat 4 landfall there in 1928, but dumb luck has spared Palm Beach for a long time now.

Also I read somewhere that Mar a Lago was built unusually strong… original residents were an old money family back in the 20s or 30s. Sadly it would survive intact even if his golf course gets shredded.

Never appealed to me in the least. St. Augustine and Villa Vizcaya are the only things that interested me at all, but I never set foot in the state, initailly for no good reason, then on principal, now for a catalogue of reasons. Similarly, I managed to avoid that other extremity state, Texas, except maybe for a change of planes.

The flashiness, the trashiness, the Disney-thing, the sun/sand/cheesy nightclubs, the Gloria Estefan connection, the Miami Vice bad mmemories, the ridiculous inhabitants of Palm Beach, the Lily Pulitzer colors, the sun rooms where Northerners go to die, the thick steaks, the early bird specials, The Villages, Florida Man in his myriad manifestations, Spring Break, too many old people, the consumer culture, retirement communities, the absence of art and culture.... The longer the list grows, the less I want anhthing to do with the place. And all that before it went Batshit Trump-licking Republican.

It only gets worse and worse

Been there numerous times, in gorgeous weather and in not gorgeous weather. Miami seems fun for a visit, but overall it just seems like an endless sunbelt hellscape.

Yes but the Miami Beach audience is the greatest audience in the world!

What will the Golden Girls do?

[quote] Miami seems fun for a visit

If you can make it from the airport to the beach without being carjacked, or killed in a drive by shooting, you may just have a good time.

You couldn't pay me to live in Florida.

Elder here, in BLUE Ft Lauderdale. It’s time to pack it up.

I won’t go back to my beloved New York City, but I know I’ve got to get the hell out of here. It’s not the same as it was in the late 70s 80s 90s and even early 2000s. I guess I should expect that, as progress will happen, but this has become progress on steroids. It’s like living in a sardine can thanks to fucking greedy builders, who are putting up apartment buildings on every available square inch along the beach, and mainland. The infrastructure cannot handle the growth. Road traffic is horrendous. All of that, plus the changing weather. The ocean is getting closer to beachfront properties, and the temperatures during these now SIX month summers, feel like being trapped inside the portal to Satan’s kitchen.

r18, and don't forget the fabulousness of the gay Mecca Wilton Manors (which sounds like the typical eldergay crotch), with its lack of zoning and where your dream retirement shack is conveniently located next door to a towing company and a psychic's store front, (complete with neon sign, flashing).

Heaven.

But, Miami's got style.

R18: A friend of mine, a Miami native who has lived in DC, Atlanta and Michigan, just Kvells about Florida and Miami to the point of annoyance, but even she and her husband realized that they needed to move from their Miami Beach condo (on the water) to some place more inland. Besides the obvious climate issues, the traffic and the general cheap Sunbelt tackiness are big turn-offs for me.

I've always been of the belief that the smartest thing to do is find a place that can provide you the best life you can have, even if it's not the Shangri-La you've always dreamed of, and stay there. People who move to different cities/states/countries repeatedly when there's no actual reason to, such as job transfers, etc, are always looking for something they usually never find, perfection. When you move to your newest dream city just as soon as the newness wears off you begin to slowly tire of the place and start dreaming of your next dream place. It's a never ending cycle. If you learn how to be happy in the best place for you the thrill of visiting other places is always there. Once you've moved from dream city to dream city there's just no thrill anymore in visiting those cities.

I've known people who've moved all over looking for their dream place. They've moved to Hawaii, the Caribbean, California, New York City, Seattle, Europe, and without fail after they settled in and got down to the everyday activities of making a life there, with the good and the bad, they started to tire of it, realizing it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Some moved back where they came from within a few years while others moved around for a while until they got older and wiser, then they came back home.

Stick with what you know kids. It's much better in the long run.

R19, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Zero. With the exception of Wilton Drive, of course which is busy with bars, restaurants, and the like, residential Wilton Manors is beautiful. Well kept, high-end, and desirable pieces of property. So zip it.

By the way Skippy, what is, what you call, “typical eldergay crotch”. You’re an ass.

[quote}I've known people who've moved all over looking for their dream place. They've moved to Hawaii, the Caribbean, California, New York City, Seattle, Europe, and without fail after they settled in and got down to the everyday activities of making a life there, with the good and the bad, they started to tire of it, realizing it wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

Not my experience at all, R32. I moved around quite a lot within the US and enjoyed each place more I can say easily. I changed countries more than five years ago, to a "dream" location of mine and it's been a completely satisfactory decision, the only possible regret of not having done it sooner.

Of course there are people who put all their wishes and dreams in a basket and move to a place that quickly disappoints them, they never feel a part of the place, and long to be back "home" to some place from their past. It's just a matter of personality and perspective in most cases: don't move to a new place thinking it will be just like the old, only better; and don't move unless you absolutely want to become part of the new place and its ways.

If you hate that the people are different, the shops different, the bureaucracy different, the medical system different, the food, the customs, the trash recycling system, the priorities, the way they walk their dogs.... you'll forever be that miserable bitch who whines for the good old days -- and quite possibly, a Datalounger.

[quote]I've known people who've moved all over looking for their dream place. They've moved to Hawaii, the Caribbean, California, New York City, Seattle, Europe,

But did they try the Isle of Greece?

r18 has stated HER BOUNDARIES!

Surprised you didn't use the term whippersnapper, grandma!

Who wants to live on Rhonda’s plantation? All she does is enjoy your suffering and tell you down is up.

That’s all you got R19? Clichés about “stating boundaries”? Sad.

You’re uninformed, and possibly ill-informed, which is worse, because that’s how misinformation spreads. I live within a half mile of Wilton Manors, so if you choose to argue with me, bring ammunition, not your limp dick. I was right, you are an ass @R19 aka R26.

Get her! Imagine, some old queen in Fort Lauderdale puttin' on airs...

Wow.. you can get a dumpy little condo in Wilton Manors for 200-300K. Not bad. Wait no, there's nicer for under 300K in Palm Springs CA

[quote]Stick with what you know kids. It's much better in the long run.

Some people thrive on seeing things and being in places that are new and different - they're not necessarily looking for "perfection." I feel stultified and bored if I'm stuck in the same place for too long.

Moldy, farty-smelling geriatric Hell hole. A hobo's dream of 'paradise'.

Florida is a very complicated place. The urban centers Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Tampa, definitely had a mini housing bubble since COVID that is now busting. The properties are still way overpriced and people aren't going for it anymore, in addition to extreme weather.

People also don't realize how much of the state is basically the deep south. You step outside the major cities and you are in a very red state. Republicans make up the top leadership and run the show.

I lived in south Florida and the Keys from 1990-2016. Key West started turning to shit around 2001. South Beach got interesting around 1992 annd turned to shit by 2007. Downtown and Wynwood got interesting around 2010 and turned to shit around Covid time. Fort Lauderdale was always shit.

Key West turned to shit in 1989-90 when Babs showed up with Don Johnson for the banana boat races and the place got overwhelmed by straights who loved how cute it was.

Key West was borderline till Trump came along and now its a complete hell hole.