was born in florida. grew up in miami. left in the mid 90s. only go there to visit family and i hate it more each time i go.
climate change is gonna wreck it pretty good i think. miami beach already has “sunny day floods” due to salt water inundation. they’re raising roads and sidewalks in some places… but not the shops or houses.
by 2030 there’s supposed to be roughy 160 days of sunny day floods each year in miami beach. if sea level rises 2ft none of the pump stations in the everglades will work. those are what keep out the salt water.
so, parts of florida could be really bad when/if the shit hits the fan. it’s sad because there’s lot’s of good things about south florida and it can be quite nice. i’m very glad i left when i did though.
but i did absolutely love growing up there and loved how diverse it is and that my schools had lot’s of kids who didn’t look like me so i learned a lot of things and generally had a lot of fun and was exposed to things i’d not have been exposed to if i’d grown up somewhere else.
it is getting crowded with bad traffic and turning into California. My home in northern California is less expensive than anything in a decent part of Florida now.
I’m pretty confused how the governor has done something right with regard to economics and population, when you yourself say that his policies have led to unaffordable housing.
To anyone who moves to Florida from a blue state, just know that the low taxes all the crunchy conservative types here love, contribute to some of the most inadequate social services in the country. If you have a disabled child or disability yourself, can’t afford healthcare, can’t afford housing, need unemployment - youre totally screwed. The conservative government of the last 30+ years has decimated any help for people in need, all to slash the taxes of these rich coastal buffoons that move here and punish their enemies, the undeserving poor.
So you’re argument is we’re one of the fastest growing states in the US because it sucks to live, work and retire here? Surely you’re not suggesting that rising home prices are due to the failings of our state government. If the government and state were failing there’d be an exodus and business closures.
No I love it here, I said nothing about any of that lol
Florida has the sun, the beach, and some nice stuff and it’s cheaper than the other places with that. People have been moving here steadily for years for that. Ron Desantis didn’t invent the sun. But begging even more people to move here during a housing crisis (with no intention of using the state to create affordable or free housing) made it worse, if youre asking
That’s a purely partisan point to say dawg. And btw low taxes here keep the poor dying and in crisis so that’s pretty frustrating to hear from fellow artists
You don’t get to have the Florida without the reality of what Florida is for the most vulnerable people
I planted an avocado because there are 2 others in my neighbors’ yards on my street. I wouldn’t have done so if I had to plant 2, I just don’t have the room.
Exactly. People raving about the current Governor miss the fact that he cut spending on critical infrastructure projects that were meant to manage sea rise and floods.
So you have to ask yourself, will you even have a real estate investment in 20-30 years from now? The current data does not look good. Neighborhoods well off the water in Miami flood now, and if you live in central FL do you want to be surrounded by swamp in 20-30 years?
I had the opportunity to buy a house in FL and passed. I still have family there so I am invested in the state.
Show us, using actuarial data, where “sea rise” is happening. I don’t live in a high rise on a sand bar so I’m pretty certain my house will be here in 30 years.
Do you generally get so much rain down there that you don’t have to water? When I was a kid some older couple my family knew moved down there pretty much because the husband liked to garden which seemed weird then but makes sense to me now although I’m too tied to distinct seasons to move to such a place.
Parts of Miami flood somewhat routinely, but especially so during king tides in September thru November. This isn’t a new occurrence, but what is (relatively) new is the debate on how much the increase is climate change related and what the impact will be over the long term.
There is very little need to water for about half of the year. In fact, we have years where we get entirely too much rain and things rot. This is one of the reasons I use a mix of planters and in ground, to help hedge output, if you will. This time of the year right now is very dry so it’s a challenge to keep things alive but that’ll change shortly as the rains start.
It’s a struggle for us. We both love the change of seasons as well. I wish I could grow some cold weather crops but alas, I cannot at the moment. Long term plan is to move further north but we’re at a place in our careers where that’s not terribly sensible at the moment.
Gulf coast Florida can be pretty wonderful…crab shacks, fried shrimp; super chill beaches with warm blue waters, Tiki bars and beautiful sunsets; growing craft beer scene; great art; wonderful fecund jungle-like state parks; gators and an incredible array of birds; fantastic thunderstorms and dramatic skies; great fishing…
The bummer about it is the totally unregulated, environmentally awful growth. My parents lived near Bradenton (between Tampa and Sarasota) for about 20 years, from 2003 until last year, when my dad passed away and my mom moved by me in the Pacific Northwest. The area around them went from farmland to gigantic concrete parking lot…and I mean a LOT of area. So much poor quality housing, just cookie-cutter awfulness, with no infrastructure to deal with run-off and pollutants. The total indifference to the environment is truly shocking, and watching the wildlife diminish over the course of 20 years, even as traffic continued to pile up, and shitty strip malls proliferated everywhere, was pretty heartbreaking.
There is so much there that is truly beautiful…it’s just being eaten. The population growth is also being driven almost entirely by Boomers, which also largely describes the hard-right turn you see in its politics, and also the indifference to the impact on the environment. The economy is being increasingly funded by pensions and Social Security generated by work done elsewhere.
North Carolina seems like it would be a good compromise between the northeast and the south but has also been experiencing a surge in migration. While I still enjoy all the seasons, more the change in them, the older I get the more the SADs seem to be creepin’ in… sigh.
You introduced specific political narratives as a positive, whether they are is… objectively a partisan issue.
I was born in FL in the 1970s, moved around the time of the last recession, but family and my best friends still reside there, their kids are working and developing themselves.
There are great things about FL still- nobody’s bitching about the sun and vegetation!
But not much economically to brag about beyond “no state taxes” and “low property taxes”, which is a lot easier to achieve (and at plenty of cost.) The draw is some mix of ecotourism and authoritarian culture warriors, not anything Florida politicians do well that a “non-partisan” would see as being industry-focused*
Seriously, the “i’m not partisan! I’m just speaking facts.” is the silliest.
The problem with Florida as ever is not the bedrock (ok, limestone aquifers) of the state, it’s the hundreds of years of narcissistic swampland-huckster politicians and those drawn to their orbit, long-time residents and visitors with a parasocial for a… specific subset of Florida politics.
*Unless the person is a proponent of crypto-industry scams in which case lol
_
Moving on, I definitely miss nurseries
I’ve been trying to find torch ginger or grow here and it’s just a completely different climate for so much flavor that is less available.
Apples, cider, growing hops for brewing have been great but I miss citrus and the stuff that would grow with minimal attention whereas here has been a lot more involved with gardening.
Yeah, the research triangle is nice but has its problems as well.
Heck, I don’t really know of any perfect area in the States, I could go off on WA but I’ll focus on the beauteous nature of the state as well (though also no pols can take credit for that either!)
