S. FL. Life

christysec

Hey! My husband and I moved to Tallahassee one week after we were married in 2007. He is graduating in May and although it is not entirely up to us because he needs to find a job, we are considering going back to Miami. What are the benefits and challenges you think your family faces raising a family in S. FL rather than somewhere like Tallahassee or Central FL (Orlando outskirts)?

P.S. Our Great but high maintenance Cuban Fam. is in Miami

karukaru

He,

The job market here sucks and Miami is much more expensive than Central Florida. I like living here (although i live in Broward) but i do no like the schools at all. I am lucky that I have a great elementary school by my house but I am hoping to put DS in a private school when he gets to middle school and high school because the schools are not great and overcrouded (in general, that is). Also, the crime rate is probably much higher here than in central Florida. I am sure you are probably aware of all of that since your family lives here. I have never lived in Central Florida so i cannot compare it to SFla.

I like the fact that Miami and Broward are more cosmopolitan and they are very diverse.

christysec

Those are exactly the things I'm struggling with! I am a teacher and I have the same opinion as you do about sending kids to private school for Middle and High school.I want my unborn children (were TTC) to have a broad cultural upbringing but I love how peaceful it is in Tallahassee and Central FL.

rach312

I completely agree with pp.  I am also a teacher (high school) and dh and I have talked a lot about the schools.  After being in the system for a little bit I feel like the students who are advanced will do well no matter where they are, but the average and struggling students have a number of challenges being in a south Florida school with the current situation.  (and this is coming from somone who teachs regular and struggling students)  Our number one reason we are here - family.  Especially now with our daughter I can't imagine being anywhere else.  The fact that she knows her uncles and grandparents as well as she does just reaffirms our decision to be here.  Family is most important to us.  We decided it's not worth moving somewhere else just to have a bigger house.  Ours is just fine and family is always there for you. 

threegs

Hi, born and raised Miamian whose lived in Broward briefly.

Why not have the best of both worlds? Move to South/Central Broward where you're close enough to the family for emergencies and special occassions like the holidays and birthdays but not so close to them that they can drop by when they're "in the neighborhood" without calling (my family is Cuban too and there are NO boundaries! LOL). Broward has that quiet suburb feeling but is a hop, skip and a jump away from the city action and diversity, not to mention all of its family rec programs.

We've considered going back to Broward after living there for 2 years but my girls go to a private school in Miami which is less than 10 minutes from my current home and when I move again I hope it'll be closer to the beach.

GL!

FSUSammy

We actually moved down here from Tally back in '05 to be closer to family. What a mistake that was because now we are stuck in our house down here because we bought during the boom and the family we do have down here is no longer in our lives! LOL

Now to compare the two, depending on what you guys do the job market down here could be a drastic difference than in Tally. Up there you have mainly govt jobs, down here you have a HUGE variety. We are both in the computer field so we were very limited up there. Our pay is also drastically higher down here than it was up there. If we were still up there there is no way I'd ever make what I'm making now down here. 

 As for raising a family down here. I love it. There is so much more to do than up there (zoo, seaquarium, jungle island, and tons more). Yeah its peaceful and quite and I do believe some of the schools up there are MUCH better than those down here but when we were up there we felt like Tally was starting to strangle us so we had to get out. 

Depending on your fields of work Orlando might be slightly better than Tally. We looked there too but the job market down here was just better for us. 

GigiFairy

I'm in Broward and personally I like it better than all the way down south in Miami. I think raising a family down here depends A LOT on the area that you live in, I would probably invest time and energy on that. As far as jobs, I think there's more opportunity and variety down here. I would stay in Broward and even as far north as Boca Raton.

Mrs.Honeybunny

for us it's all about family support. We rely alot on our parents. DH is in medical school and I work nights. I'm now expecting baby #2 and can't imagine living anywhere else with 2 little ones and having to work just to pay for daycare. We do not plan to live here forever especially since residencies are limited down here for obgyns (specialty DH wants) but for now that both kids are so far from middle and high school it's ok. righ tnow it just doesn't make sense for us cost wise but eventurally when school is free it will be ok. I would love central florida.

GL