Thanks so much to all of you who took time out to share your thoughts with me both positive and negative. FL Chad, what a gorgeous picture you painted in one of your posts. I'm happy that you have such precious memories of your childhood in FL. I, too, have some glorious memories of growing up in Santa Barbara back when everyone knew everyone else and traffic was scarce and crowds even scarcer. Of climbing like a monkey on the pilings under the pier back when it really was a fishing pier and not a tourist attraction. Of walking to the near-empty beaches and spending the day running in the sun and surfing and throwing frisbees for our dogs who were not required to be on leashes. Of not being afraid to walk the streets at night or venturing into the "lesser desirable" areas of town. Of going to the movie theatre to see the latest and greatest movie and only half the house was full. I could go on and on, but you get the picture....
Anyway, overall, it sounds as if us Californians and you Floridians have a whole lot in common. Overpopulation and, as a result, the obliteration of what we all once knew and loved about our respective states due to the infiltration of the rich, the immigrants, the plastic sun-worshipers - what have you - moving in and (in our case) forcing us out.
Re: housing prices in CA compared to those in FL, based on ~somewhat~ in-depth research, I think you all have it a bit better than we do. For instance, you can pick just about any town/city near the ocean in S.CA. and expect to pay at least $2.5 million for an older 2 or 3bdrm, 2bth, 1100 sq ft house with no land to speak of. It's not much different up here in the SF Bay Area, but still a bit cheaper. As an example, our house is in a community housing development. You know the type where you come home and accidently pull into someone else's driveway by mistake thinking it's your house because they all look the same? None of the houses here have land - we're all scrunched up against each other and we can practically hear each other breathe when we're in our very small backyards. It's horribly clausterphobic. Still, there aren't many houses left in our neighborhood that sell for less than $1 million. Absolute insanity. Go down a bit closer to Silicon Valley and the same house that we live in would go for at least a couple million, if not more. I repeat, absolute insanity.
But like FL Chad wrote:
FL_Chad:
I get so frustrated with people moving here I have to try and not think about it at times. What frustrates me is that it is uncontrolled and dominated by greed, money and people that dont realize what they are ruining and realistically, there is nothing you can do about it.
This is what we're facing here, too. Absolutely NOT to insult anyone here, but in my experience, Californian's (whether native or not) don't seem have such a grudge or 'shoulder chip' about the situation as Floridians. Our attitudes are basically like FL Chad's - "...nothing you can do about it," so why waste our time and energy on resentment and anger and trying to keep people out?
I don't know where we'll end up moving, but unfortunately it's just not possible for us to stay here. I was just hoping to be able to raise my little girl a bit like I was raised, so that she, too, could grow up with sand between her toes and the smell of salt in her hair as she drifted off to sleep at night. Shoot, I want to
die with sand between my toes and the smell of salt in my hair! FL seemed the perfect solution, but now I'm left feeling like a deflated balloon.
Ah, well.... things could always be worse, right?
