It’s a terrible place to live. Even visiting is awful.
Actually, the worst thing about South Florida, I’ve found, is the winter influx of visitors, who crowd up the roads and the stores and restaurants. I’ve found it surprisingly tolerable in the summers (mostly staying in the AC from 9 AM through sunset)–the roads are empty, the stores and restaurants are open, and it’s pleasant weather for the most part, not that much different from the northeast, actually, Sure it’s hot and humid, but so is New York City and Boston and Toronto in the summer.
As I live in Western Canada, if I’m taking an winter vacation, I want to be GAURANTEED “summer” weather. If I want to travel within the boundaries of continental US, the only place I can be pretty much GAURANTEED “summer” weather, lets say in late January, is southern Florida.
I think I’ve told this story here before. A few years ago, the big boss of our ($10B) business unit decided to grow our presence in coastal Florida. So, he announced that employees were going to receive reassignment and would be expected to accept transfer to “where the work is” or there would be consequences (he was fond of letting people know that he had moved more than a dozen times in his career). Of course, moving expenses would be covered and there would even be help in house hunting in the new location.
About a month after the announcement, I ran into one of the boss’s direct reports and asked him how the relocations were going. He told me that the acceptance percentage was in the low single digits. A few weeks later, Communications started a campaign around “bringing the work to where the workers are”.
Where was this population of engineers being transferred from? Coastal Southern California: San Diego and the South Bay of Los Angeles. Somehow, the extra humidity, lack of topography (surf in the morning, ski in the afternoon is a real thing, folks), and wonderful political climate in Florida wasn’t enough.
Is there something I, as a SoCal resident, am missing out on in Florida?
I’m pretty sure a lot of people choose FLA over SoCal in large part due to state taxes and cost of living.
My son worked for a company near Denver that wanted to relocate significant operations to Huntsville, AL. The engineers flat-out refused to relocate, so for an extended period they flew rotations of engineers to AL for something like 1 week per month, paying rent and per diem.
I was born & raised in Orange County, CA. Went to college & grad school at USC. I now live on the beach aways north of Miami, but still in the greater Miami metroblob.
Compared to the Pacific, the Atlantic is much more hospitable for everything other than surfing. There is substantially no surfing here.
Taxes are lower here. Prices, especially real estate prices, are lower here. Gasoline is much cheaper here. The urban counties vote D, the rural parts of the state vote R. Just like in CA.
My attitude to coastal CA was always that it’d be perfect if it was 15F warmer in winter and 10F warmer in summer. Coastal FL is that, plus a bit. Yes, it’s sticky in summer. But CA is damp in winter. I’ll take sticky over damp; YMMV.
CA has “June gloom” a couple months a year every year and marine layers most days of the rest of the year all over SoCal. Instead FL has hurricanes every couple of decades affecting any given spot.
On balance I’ll take SoFL. Despite deeply loving what SoCal was in the 1960s - early 1980s before an extra 15m people moved in.
I’d hate that. And I like June Gloom. Florida is not for me. I don’t care much for the flatness, and the political climate would keep me from ever moving. Some cheap places are cheap for a reason…
I’m no fan of flatness either. Away from the water there’s not much I consider beautiful except the women. And at my age and especially at my marital status they’re sorta irrelevant. Entertaining, but distantly so. FL, at least coastal FL is not cheap. What it is is less expensive than coastal SoCal. Plenty of $10M mansions and $4M condos in my zipcode. No, I don’t own one.
As to the political climate, right now our rural/urban divide is such that the ruralians control the legislature most years and the governorship most recent years. As ruralia keeps getting less populous and the big cities get bigger we’ll turn the corner. I hope.
CA has certainly had their share of R governors over the years.
The state’s overall public attitude is admittedly quite different. How much that matters on a daily basis to a generic citizen is an interesting conversation, but probably not germane to this thread.
Back in the 70s, when my dad decided we should move out of Montreal to a warmer climate, he had to choose between Florida and California. Every day I thank goodness he chose California.
Very seriously, they have already spent tens of thousands of dollars studying the proposal.
Personally I think it’s a stupid idea, what with the water table being mere feet below ground level and the bedrock being limestone and Fort Lauderdale already seeing occasional area flooding. There’s a reason none of us build basements.
Has his Boring Company actually accomplished anything anywhere, aside from test projects? I think he somehow won a contract in Chicago for a loop from the airport to downtown but never heard of it ever progressing.
The mayor remains hopeful for the project, he should listen to those critical of the scheme.
“Raw sewage? That’s the ‘eau de Fort Lauderdale,’” she said. “We’re thinking about drilling under the ground when what’s under the ground is coming up into the street. It’s insane. Just take care of your s—.”
Ignore vital infrastructure but say yes to musk’s plan cart tourists to the beach.
Nope, not even remotely. I’m petit-bourgeois overall, but a total prole compared to the fat-cats around here. I couldn’t afford the wax on these folks’ yachts, much less the men to apply it.
