Help! (Palm beach county, Broward) (Miami, Sarasota: 2015, crime, homes)

[know2walk]

My husband and I really need helping figuring out if we should move to Florida or not. We had found the perfect place we wanted to move to---San Diego—until we found out about the awful air quality .
We have a toddler and would like to live in a place where we can enjoy the outdoors year around(I know it gets really hot, but considering we live in a place where its either 40F in the winter and 90F + in the summer, we can’t be outdoors at all, so Florida is a major improvement).
We started looking into Florida, but have come across a lot of negative posts regarding raising kids there (crime, etc). We are really only interested in Broward county, Palm beach county or specifically, but to a lesser extent, Key Biscayne in Miami.
We would be very appreciative if you could help us with a decision… Visiting is really not the same as living there and we are scared to make the wrong decision.
Please let us know if the criteria we are looking for is possible in So. Florida? If so, which area or neighborhood would you recommend for us?


1-GATED community (I’m sure there are many of these, just putting it out there)

2-Excellent private school close by

3- VERY pedestrian friendly (able to walk in safety to shops, café, bike to beach)

4- SAFE. I worry a lot about this one because I am getting the idea that in So.Florida, there are good neighborhoods surrounded by bad ones—in other others, if one leaves the bubble, one might see gang activity, etc.

5- Health conscious surroundings---people jogging, organic, healthy or even vegan eats close by

6- An area that is not often evacuated during hurricanes

7- You are going to laugh at me but any areas where there are less alligators and snakes? LOL. I’m terrified of them! Will I see them more if I live in one of those intracoastal waterway homes?

8- Price range is around $1M

9- We work from home so commute is not a problem.

10- We have also briefly looked at Sarasota and Ft. Myers. What do you think of them? Do they cater more to senior citizens? We are also a multi ethnic family---so we would like a place where we would feel comfortable.


THANK YOU!!

[skylinet]

There's a few nice communities in the Palm Beach Gardens/Jupiter areas that would fit what you are looking for. The area as a whole is a little spread out which depending on how far you like to walk makes it more like biking distance to restaurants/shopping.
There's lots of nice trails in the area with people jogging, and biking all the time. Abacoa (part of Jupiter) has a lot of activities for the children. Starting to see a few healthy restaurants coming up as well.
Most of the gated communities in the area are also country club so there is equity memberships involved. San Michele in PBG is a nice gated community that could be a good fit. Very close to the Benjamin School, within a mile or two to lots of restaurants and shopping, and biking distance to the beach.
Valencia in Abacoa is very nice, but not gated.

[ByeByeLW]

It would be highly unlikely that you'd see a gator in the intracoastal, They prefer the swamps and freshwater areas.

Tropic Isle in Delray is a nice intracoastal neighborhood where you could walk/bike to the beach. It's not gated, but it is upscale. They are building a Trader Joe's and an upscale mall within walking distance.

There are a few poisonous snakes here: most are just fine. We don't have copperheads, We have coral snakes, cottonmouths and rattlesnakes in South Florida.

It seems like the coral snake would be the one you'd most likely see out of any of the poisonous ones, and that could just be because they're so colorful. They have a lookalike called the king snake, and he is not poisonous. I go hiking to look for the others and I don't fins them! You'd mostly see a black racer, a garter snake or maybe a rough green snake. They will help take care of the palmetto bugs and other things Just familiarize yourself with the ID, and feel good knowing that Miami has the best supply of anti-venom in the world. It's really nothing to worry about. Most snakes don't want anything to do with you!! Cottonmouths like water: rattlers like to hide under stuff.

I've never heard of an area being overrun with snakes.

If you go to some of the communities out west you will have gators in the canals as they are fresh water. They are not usually found in the manufactured lakes, but anything is possible.

If you go up further north to Gulfstream, you will find some other places but I'm not sure if any would be under a million. You would be in an evacuation zone.

The area private schools would be Gulkfstream, St Andrews and St Vincents I think.

But for parks and jogging etc you'd probably be better off in the areas the previous poster mentioned. Jupiter has some really great parks. South palm Beach county seems crowded next to Jupiter.

[D2015]

Thank you so much everyone!! I'm excited about the move but everyone keeps telling me South Florida is a dump and too dangerous to raise kids in. Would you agree with that? I'm so scared to make a mistake. We are leaving our state because I hate it, but I don't want to drag my family into hell.

[071402]

check north Palm Beach area. Very very far from dumpy ... in fact, seriously manicured, pristine and safe. DM me anytime. Good luck. Our area is gorgeous - especially the beach.

[TriMT7]

Originally Posted by D2015

Thank you so much everyone!! I'm excited about the move but everyone keeps telling me South Florida is a dump and too dangerous to raise kids in. Would you agree with that? I'm so scared to make a mistake. We are leaving our state because I hate it, but I don't want to drag my family into hell.

No. I don't know who these people are that are making these pronouncements, but there are, what, 5 million people in South Florida, including a ton of wealthy folks.


Northern Palm Beach County will give you a bit of a slower pace than the rest of South Florida, in a more upscale atmosphere. Jupiter, Tequesta, Palm Beach Gardens.... all have crime indexes below national average.