Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Florida vs Texas - Jobs, Crime, etc?

I just bought a home two hours north of Tampa........there's a reason for that.

But then again, I'm going to be fishing for a living so a quiet, little, Gulf Coast town is just perfect for me!


Good luck if you decide to head to Tampa.....you might try Bradenton instead.

The reason..........crime? So you are north, not south in Bradenton?

Thanks for the input, knew of Sarasota, but not Bradenton.

I don't know Florida.

Get to Austin a couple times a year as my wife grew up an hour or so to the northeast.

Of the choices given, northwest Arkansas would be hard to beat. . It is booming and it's only minutes from the I49 strip to get into authentic banjo picking.

No, I am two hours north, near Fanning Springs, FL.

I was suggesting that if you are set on the Tampa area, you might look into Bradenton, FL. My father lived there for a few years until he passed, so I had a chance to visit the area.

Mucho traffic in the Tampa/St. Pete area......too busy for me, that's why I went north to a quiet little area. And Yes, there will be more crime in that area.......

We call Bradenton--> Brandentucky for a reason. Can be some nice areas around there and I was seriously considering it at one time as I do like Sarasota and Venice but the places that are nice and on the water are $$$ and the places that are nice off the water are surrounded by riffraff it seems. It may be getting better but I was actually looking around Ellington right by the river on the water houses were in the mid 200K range a while back. I live an hour south of Frogman and agree with his assessment of the area.

I live in a very rural area in east central MS. I've got an old farmhouse and a few hundred acres around it and my family is from here, they're mostly deceased now though. Three years ago I found myself going through a divorce and my little piece of heaven is now getting a bit lonely. Peace and solitude is great, but too much of it can get to be "too much" With that in mind I bought a lot I'm planning to build on on Perdido Key outside Pensacola FL a year or so back, love the NW FL area. I'll always keep my MS place, but want a second home in a place with more to do. I've got friends around my FL place and I'm a couple hundred feet from the prettiest beach you ever saw so those were big factors. There's a lot of activity going on in the panhandle. I don't know about jobs in the area (I commute to work as a pilot), but the area seems to be booming especially in the 30A area between Destin and Panama City so that should make job hunting easier. It is definitely more "southern" than the other parts of Florida. Tampa is nice from what I've seen of it though I suspect the crime is going to be more as it's a bigger city than anything in the panhandle. My picking of the perdido key area had a lot to do with me being close to an airport that my company flies into so I can hitch a ride to work when it's time.

I recently drove through Dallas coming back from a prairie dog hunt, parts are OK as you get outside the city to the north and west, but overall it isn't a place I'd want to live. It seemed like every place I stopped was filled with hispanics sporting tattoos from head to toe. I found myself trying to figure out what mexican drug gang they belonged to. Not the type of people I want living anywhere near me.

Austin is a lot nicer than Dallas in my mind. I fly through there every now and then and have roamed the downtown quite a bit. The music scene is great there on 6th st as mentioned but I'm not sure I'd pick a place to live based on that. You can find a lively music scene anywhere along the coast from Louisiana to Florida in all the beach towns. I have heard from a lot of people that Austin's traffic is terrible and housing prices are high.

How much crime in an area is an issue that's generally easy to figure out, just look at the demographics of the area. High numbers of blacks and hispanics are going to mean high crime. With that in mind, stay away from those areas and you'll be OK. Dallas has high numbers of both so I would expect pretty high crime. With Austin I'd imagine it's kind of pocketed. Along the FL panhandle some cities like Panama City have areas with big black populations therefore high crime. It's usually isolated though, stay away from those areas and the crime should be low.

I will say that I think the woman situation is good in the FL panhandle. It seems to be a destination place to move for 30-40 year old women coming off a divorce. Chics like the beach and most secretly dream of living near one someday. When they go through a divorce many will use that see that life changing event as an opportunity to move where they've always wanted to live.

Good luck with your search

Never heard anything good about Tampa. Lived 4 hours from there my whole life, been there twice, to go to Busch Gardens, then get outta there. San Antonio is cool....

Very good feedback and much to reflect on, appreciate everyone's feedback. Nothing against SA, but spent a week there years ago for job training and it was at peak heat....enjoyed the boardwalk there a few trips on other business meetings as well. Seems like FL would not be bad for me if I could land a solid job with career growth, that might not be easy, but here the oil/gas biz has tanked, bringing down all, Crime rates, taxes, as well as regulation, do not make for a good outlook for the state or my area. Traffic is definitely a quality of life issue, whether to/from work, or otherwise. It's often 1-3 hours of commute for many living in the DFW area, sure Austin and Tampa may be similar. I've driven Orlando to Tampa Bay, and just did leave there back to the Orlando airport right as rush hour was getting started. That was 2006 and it was very busy. No doubt if one could locate outside the metro, it would be less congested, and expensive.

Thanks again.

All kinds of jobs in Permian Basin