[Ghaati]

Originally Posted by RosemaryT

Did you leave The Villages?

Having lived there for a few months, I agree with everything you said. I’ve already seen several bad incidents with golf cart drivers who weren’t paying attention. As an avid cyclist, I am saddened to say that I stay OFF the multi modal paths. Far more dangerous than a busy road.

We've in our fifth year. It's busier during snowbird season than it was last year and the year before, but it's always busier between October and April than the rest of the year.

The Villages is also a LOT larger than it was in 2011, when this thread was first posted. It's spread out around 60 square miles and now crosses the Florida's Turnpike. The Developers have also built an entire separate community called Middleton, a bit south of the Villages, to accommodate families. This is bringing in more people to work in, and for, the Villages. In the area's medical buildings, retail stores, restaurants, roofing companies, banks, schools, etc. These families living in Middleton won't be snowbirds since they're bringing their kids, and those kids go to school here in schools that the Developer also built.

I live on the complete opposite side of The Villages, way way up in the northeast of the community. It's around 45 minutes away by car and I don't believe I can get to it by golf cart yet but if I could, it'd be well over an hour's drive.

My section isn't being built out any further, because adjoining land is already owned by a different developer who has no intention of selling to ours.

I ride my bike on "my side of the bridge" with no trouble at all, all year round. We do have snowbirds of our own, but as I said - there's no further spread on my side, so it's the same number of people this winter as there was last winter. Most folks living in the southern part of the Villages don't want to come all the way up north to play golf - they have their own golf courses. Our country club pool is nicer, it has a waterfall, is bigger, and the view is much better from the top of the hill. But it's rare you'll meet anyone from south of Sumter up here.

BTW - the Villages is divided into dozens of different "neighborhoods," each with its own pool, and clusters of neighborhoods get their own recreation center. For instance, our side of 441 has Country Club Hills, Orange Blossom, and Silver Lake. Country Club Hills has Hilltop pool, Silver Lake has the Silver Lake pool. Orange Blossom has the Paradise rec center and family pool. The rec center serves all three neighborhoods. Everyone in the Villages has access to any of that, but it's mostly just folks who actually live in these three neighborhoods who use it.

So with over 100 pools spread out over 60 square miles, over 50 golf courses, with baseball diamonds, dog parks, bocci/shuffleboard, archery ranges, dragonboat clubs and races, the Senior Olympics (it's a national thing and the Villages represents and practices all year here), dancing to live music outdoors every night in several different venues scattered across the development, our own libraries and charter schools exclusively for the children of business owners and employees (who live in neighborhoods that were built specifically for families)...dozens of rec center buildings, a full sized performance center, learning opportunities, and all the commercial/retail/service/medical/restaurant strip malls and shops that have come as a result of all this development..

we have basically a small city of 150,000 residents, and around 2/3 of them live here all year round.

Most of the neighborhoods don't have an HOA, only a very few (maybe 4?) truly gated areas have one. We pay an amenity fee of less than $200/month, to get everything I described 2 paragraphs up, and more.

We also have our own fire department and the Villages Health, which employs full time physicians and specialists to accommodate the medical needs of many of our residents. There are other medical groups, but TVH is owned by The Villages.

TV is clearly marketed to straight white conservative middle America. But thankfully some people who are something other than "straight white conservative middle America" come to live here anyway, and bring their diversity with them. Many of us are grateful for that.