I thought Tampa seemed decent when I visited there, ended up applying for residency there and being offered a spot but decided to go somewhere that my wife would have better jobs prospects. Maybe I was just taken by the allure of Bern’s Steakhouse. My wife’s cousin also lives near Winter Park in the Orlando area which is nice, although I don’t think I could live there.
Where I live now in Tucson seems like an incredible area to retire. Low cost of living, college town, great food, lots of outdoor activities, decent amount of culture. Only catch is the summers but they aren’t as bad as Phoenix and most of the retirees here are snowbirds anyway.
I also thought Miami was a hole. We have essentially the exact same place in Australia called the Gold Coast. Backpackers get funnelled there because there’s a lot of infrastructure, but I once asked like 20 backpackers a bit further down the coast whether they had liked it and only had one guy answer affirmatively.
It’s not THAT much like Miami. It’s just a city with warm weather on good beaches which is kind of tacky and vapid and has a lot of retirement communities attached.
I’d say that is a spot on description of many cities on the FL coast. It’s not even untrue of (parts of) Miami. The only difference is that, with the other cities, there is really nothing else to add. With Miami, there is a whole lot more.
I’ve actually driven past this place once on the way to visit some friends who live in that area and I remember thinking “WTF is that?” Mystery solved, I guess.
Its worth noting that having old people around isn’t the problem. There are lots of old people in NYC and they’re generally very interesting people that make the city a better place.
The problem is with “planned retirement community” type places that are currently populated by insufferable boomers who bring absolutely nothing to the table other than their retirement savings and a pathological need to feel resentment.
