Tampa: A Brave New (Low-Cost) World

I’m from Massachusetts, which is located in New England, so by default I have this inexplicable disdain for all things southern. We northerners think of ourselves as superior to our neighbors to the south, and we also fear southerners for their guns and confederate flags and pickup trucks. To a Yankee like me, the South is truly a terrifying and exotic place.

But then there’s Florida, a state which confuses northerners (myself included) because it’s not only the southern-most state in the US – and likewise home to numerous toothless hillbillies – but it’s also a huge colony for Octogenarians from New Jersey, as well as Cubans, who probably intended to move to New York but Florida turned out to be closer and more convenient so they just stayed. It’s also a major tourist destination for Northerners, and (since the tourists come for the weather and the theme parks and not to celebrate southern cultural achievements) the state does a good job of hiding the hillbillies and taming their drawls, giving many the impression that they’re not in the South at all, but rather in an unusually warm part of Long Island.

I’ve always seen Florida as one big uncomfortable theme park, and it really confused me when friends of mine left the North and moved to Florida in search of education and jobs and a place to live. Florida? Why would anyone move there before their 75th birthday? It all seemed really twisted to me. But time and experience has worn down the thick, stubbornly dense shell around my head, and when Christopher and I rolled into Tampa, I saw this small Gulf-Coast city not with the Florida-phobic eyes of my youth, but with something much stronger: a newly acquired appetite for home ownership.

Tampa is cheap, and coming off of a couple years of living in Brooklyn, NY, (where you can’t get a house for less than a half million bucks) Tampa is really cheap. Aside from being more economically forgiving than New York, Tampa is sunny and warm and surrounded by beautiful beaches. Its small, quaint, ranch-style neighborhoods are full of lush gardens with palm trees and colorful birds. Public transportation? No. Good schools? Not really. Career opportunities? Maybe in Law enforcement – the city has some pretty bad crime stats. I admit, this city doesn’t really look good on paper.

But the average home price is around $200 grand (and dropping), and all I could do while we cruised around the shady, breezy neighborhoods of Tampa was to peep at “For Sale” signs, stare at the cute little homes, and imagine myself out front, tending my little tropical plant garden, sipping on a margarita, and waiting for Christopher to get home from his job at the Tampa Police Department. These days moving to Florida doesn’t seem so crazy after all.

Or – actually, it would be really crazy. Nevermind.