Question for Florida residents....Do You Love Where You Live?

I grew up there and we are doing everything we can to get back there.

The heat isn't really an issue b/c every place in FL has AC. You won't miss the change of seasons and as a child Santa came in on a surf board, which was pretty darn cool!

Good stuff:
- Weather
- Many cultural opportunities
- Highly diverse state... depending on where you live it's very metro or very Old South and you can find either within a few hours of driving
- Excellent colleges and universities
- The beach, the beach, the beach

Bad stuff:
- Bad public schools (really, really bad in some areas)
- When you live there, you don't go to the beach all that often, but it's nice knowing it's there!
- Tourist season (seriously a pain if you live near the beach)
- The middle corridor of the state is tough... no beach breeze, hard to get to the coasts and somewhat isolated.

**Just remember that Sanibel adn Marco Island are resort towns. People don't really live there. The "residents" live just "outside" of those areas. The West coast is very different than the East coast (where I grew up) and North FL is vastly different than South Florida. This is a tough question to respond to without picking your "quadrant"!

I never would have thought I would be living in florida but here I am, i lived near jacksonville for 8 years and am in gainesville going on 18 months now. I love florida! I don't like to be cold. I don't have to scrape my windshield of ice & snow (ok maybe 4 times last winter i did & I used my debit card b/c i don't have a scraper) I don't have to do boots, mittens hats. Yay! I have Never seen snow here. I don't miss the seasons - I do have some seasonal fluctations..
It is Very Hot in the summer- I would NOT live here with out central air conditioning!! But you just get used to the heat. In gainesville We have the benfit of some great community pools & I have one in my apartment complex. You do need access to a pool otherwise the summer is very h*** o* the kids! I lived in new orleans for 14 months when I had a 1 yr old and a 3 yr old we did not have lots of funds and no pool access- was hard!
The economy here is not awesome, the housing market was hit hard there are lots of foreclosure properties etc. I would want to move first and then look for work!

I lived in Fl for 25 years. I don't think you will miss shoveling tons of snow once you get down there. You need to be able to be economically independent or have a secure job lined up, because the economy is really bad down there right now, all over the state, not just in certain areas. I hate the cold and snow, where I am now, so I would like to get back there at some point. I love the weather. Yes it is humid, but that is only in the summer, and then you just have warm weather the rest of the year, but no humidity. If you live on the coast the beach is always there and that is always great. You have all of the theme parks in the Orlando area. With the economy in the tank right now, it is very easy to buy a lot of house now in Florida. No state income tax. What I don't like is all of the snow birds in the winter, and in the summer it usually will rain every day, but that is usually only for a few hours in the late afternoon, at least in the area where I'm from.

I hate FL... the schools, the laws, and the never ending sun and heat. There are no seasons here... just never ending heat, humidity and sun, and 2-3 months of cool to cold weather which can fluctuate daily.

Once I get all my schooling done, I hope to move to a cooler state or even Europe!

I have lived here all my life and yes, I do love it! We live 10 minutes from the beach (Gulf of Mexico) and we love to go and sit in the sand and just be and let the kids play. Yes, it's hot. It's awful hot. We have very short winters and it usually doesn't get below 50 degrees here where I am. The humidity is what gets you. It's not a dry heat, but a "wet" heat. You will start to sweat walking from your car to the grocery store. BUT, there is so much to counter that as well. Where we live (near a minor league baseball stadium), we bike ride and see fireworks 3 times a month. We go the beach. We have free spray parks that cools the kids off in the summer. Tampa and St. Pete are close by and they have great museums. Busch Gardens is 35 minutes away. Disney and Universal Studios are 1 1/2 hours away. Florida residents get discounts. We have a year long Busch Gardens pass and they have a great new Sesame Street play area so we just go back and back. Public schools, like the one mom said, are bad. Our county (Pinellas) is slightly better, but even still we enrolled in Fundamental school for next year. I love the mountains and change of season, but I could not imagine not living by the water. Right now is a great time to buy a home in Florida near the water. With the economy the way it is, it is definitely a buyer's market. Good luck with whatever you decide!

I've been here in southeastern FL for 10 years this summer.

The pros: It is gorgeous most of the time. If you live near the coast the summer heat is not as intense as it is inland. The bugs are not as bad either. I never, and I repeat NEVER, miss Indiana winters (where I lived for about 12 years prior). We are water nuts, and love boating, so it is great for us in that respect.

The cons: on the southeast coast you have lots of north-eastern mentality (think burrough of NYC) which I generally find to be rude, pushy, and self-centered. Of course this is a stereotype that does not apply to everyone. There are lots of nice people here too but I feel like I have to work harder to find them than I did in the midwest. There is also a "shady" element here (gambling, drinking, partying).

All that being said, it sounds like you are aiming for the gulf coast side, which I have heard has nicer people. One concern over there is the pollution from the oil spill (though Sanibel and Marco are far enough south to get good water flow). Also, I'm not sure how many jobs there are on the west side of Florida. Where I live is a major metropolitan area so there are more opportunities.

Don't overpay for a home, but don't expect a "steal" either necessarily (unless you are a cash buyer).

Husband and I love FL but we talk about moving north to the St. Augustine area where you get a bit more home for you $$. We are partial to the east coast side and you will find people equally devoted to the Gulf coast side.

Just my $.02 . . .

PS: I truly don't mean to stereotype either - I'm just giving you the general consensus that I hear CONSTANTLY from people of all walks of life. If you stop 10 people on the street down here 9 of them will tell you how rude it is in SE Florida. It's just reality. Sometimes I wonder if everyone - who complains - would just be nice the whole area would be nicer. :P

PSS: My husband is from New Jersey (right near NYC) so I'm not totally against north-easterners LOL.

You;ve got some very interesting answers so far, I thought I would throw my opinion in here.

There are so many diverse areas of FL. I grew up in South FL and now live in Central FL. North FL is completely different and so is East from West and the Keys are different as well.

I can't believe people feel that they can generalize people in a certian area, that to me is very strange. I have not met every person in South FL North Fl, Central, etc so I can't really tell you what the people are like. In my opinion every person is differnt from each other and you will interact/react to them differently. I don't think you can choose a region to live based on the "type" of people. That would be like me thinking every person in NJ is like "The Situation"

Out of South and Central FL I LOVE living in central FL. We are a few minutes north of Orlando and it is an amazing place to raise kids!! We are about 40 minutes from Disney, about a half hour from the Cape and Coco Beach, there is a childrens art center, history center, and science center within a half hour from our house. There are parks everywhere, we have easy access to the highway, and festivals like you wouldn't believe! I LOVE that almost every weekend we can find a FREE event to go to. There are hometown harvests, TONS of farmers markets, last week Playground Magazine put on a huge event that was completely free and so much fun for the kids. We were there for hours and didn't even go through half of the event. We are also about 10-15 minutes from UCF, which is an amazing school and getting better every year. It's great for football games, basketball games, and there are always tons of kids shows at the arena. The shopping in Orlando is great as well. Tons of discounts and outlets for the tourists that locals can take advantage of.
I like that the weather changes here. We are ususally 5-10 degrees cooler than South FL so we have more of a "winter" and a slightly cooler summer. I'm not going to lie the summer is HOT, horribly hot. Every year we get so excited for November to finally get here! This winter was very cold for us. We spent weeks in the 20s and 30s. It is a different kind of cold here than up North, I think it feels cooler, and this is from spending many winters in ILL. But good news is we don't get snow, which means no snow suits, boots, hats, etc for the kids. But there were a few mornings that we had to start the car early and scrape ice off the windows.
Pretty much the only thing I like better about South FL than Central is that the beach is only 10 minutes away and that every house has a pool! In Central FL only about 1/2 of the houses have pools and that was so strange to me coming from South FL. But there are splash parks everywhere, and community pools all around. Chances are you will quickly meet people that have pools at their homes.

As for schools, not all public schools are terrible or even bad or good. There are some AMAZING schools around you just have to research. I live in Seminole County (and used to teach here as well). We are one of the best in the state. Also I was educated exclusively in public schools in FL and I feel that I have recieved an education that I can be proud of. I have quite a bit of family in other parts of the country and I know that I was better educated than others. Education is an area of life where input seriously effects the output. In any part of the country you are going to get more out of a child's education if you, as a parent, are willing to participate.
It's going to be impossible for anyone to make this decision for you. :) Good luck and you can let me know if you have any other specific questions that you think I may be able to help you with.

Sorry that I kind of went on for awhile, but some other responses kind of hit a nerve with me. Blame it on the post partum hormones. :)