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First off let me say, Tampa sucks. I lived the Pasco/Hillsborough area since 2001 and finally escaped in 2010. I went to USF for 6 years and got both a bachelors and a graduate certificate.

The biggest reason that tampa sucks is because it is a cultural wasteland of stripmalls. There's no public space, and if you want to leave your house there's nothing to do except drink at Ybor's shitty clubs, or waste your money shopping/consuming.

The second biggest reason that tampa sucks is that it takes fucking forever to get anywhere! It takes an hour and a half to take the bus from USF to downtown, but it takes 45 mins to make the same trip on a bicycle. Even if you're just going down the street in your own car you can guarantee that it will take at least 15-20 mins, god forbid you have to make a U-turn, it may add another 5 minutes onto your trip. Tampa is used as a prime example in civil engineering of a poorly designed city.

The third biggest reason that tampa sucks is the economy. There isn't one. You can either work as a professional like a lawyer or business person, or you can be a secretary/clerk for those professionals. Or you can work at some shitty retail store or as a server in a restaurant where your biggest opportunity for advancement is to become the manager of said shitty store/restaurant. Or you can work in the military. The only reason tampa even exists is because it used to be a port city, but now it's just a military base, which brings me to the next reason that tampa sucks.

The entire war in the middle east is run out of MacDill AFB. These wars have destroyed our national economy, but nobody in tampa can acknowledge this because this military blood-money is actually the only thing keeping the city from collapsing.

Next reason. People build their houses over precious wetlands, and then complain about flooding, sinkholes and "nuisance" alligators. YOU'RE THE NUISANCE not the alligators!! This rampant destruction of wetlands is also part of the reason why tampa's economy sucks so terribly. During the real estate boom, everybody made tons of money by destroying the environment, building ugly houses which all look the same no matter where you go in the state. Then when the bubble burst and it was no longer profitable to destroy the wetlands at such a manic pace, the only thing that was left for everybody was the previously mentions cultural wasteland of stripmalls.

Almost done here. EDUCATION. Florida is notorious for having one of the shittiest education systems in the entire country, and Tampa certainly inherits this legacy. After going through public high school where I knew more about the subjects than my teachers did, I made the mistake of going to USF because I wanted to be near friends and family. After four years of having every real opportunity for learning stifled by my preoccupation with mind-numbing assignments from my professors, I decided to take graduate courses to become a teacher. After all, I wasn't taught any actual skills at university, so what else could I do with my degree? Let me just say this; if you want to know why florida has a shitty education system, just go and take some teacher prep classes. It will be quite apparent. I took a class on teaching statistics, and most of my classmates didn't actually know statistics because the class didn't even have Intro to Stats as a prerequisite! So they were being taught how to teach a subject they had never even studied themselves!

And finally, THE PEOPLE! Fuck all of you. Now, before you get offended, take a look around a ask yourself how you feel about the people you interact with everyday.... exactly.

And so in conclusion. Tampa sucks. I'm glad I don't live there anymore, and I won't miss it. Even the prospect of going back to get the rest of my stuff makes me have a fucking panic attack. If you knew what was good for you, you'd leave it too and allow the place to slowly sink into the sea, to let the buildings and roads crumble so that the swamp can take it's land back and return it to the wonderful wilderness that must have existed there before it became such a blight to civilization.

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NoOneKnowsHowToAct said:

The no public space or nothing to do thing is complete BS. There's always a billion things to do in Tampa.

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Nunbuh_Chrubble said:

Tell me where you go on a semi-regular basis to recreate in public without having to spend money, and which don't involve getting fucked up...

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John said:

actual moral of this thread: grass is always greener.

i've lived in tampa, saint pete, gaineville for 4 years (school), new york, toronto, detroit, windsor, and vancouver. each place at least a year+ tampa area most of my life. there's nothing drastically wrong with tampa, sure big cities are better but gainesville? nahhh. if you go 2 miles from gaineville in any direction you're surrounded by inbred hicks.

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inbred hicks LOL
I guess I am one but that's alright, I have accepted who I am.  I was born at Shands in Gainesville and have lived in High Springs and Gainesville my entire life.  those "inbred hicks," as you call them are really good people.

from all the inbred hicks of North FL.

NoOneKnowsHowToAct said:

I like Tampa. It's not NYC, it's not LA, it's Tampa.

The no public space or nothing to do thing is complete BS. There's always a billion things to do in Tampa.

The "it takes hours to get anywhere" thing is kinda true, but it's not nearly as bad as LA. Also, it's not often that you'll be driving across town to do things. Most things are within 10 minutes assuming you don't live on some far side of the city.

Tampa economy is fine IMO. Person misses a lot of things you can also do in Tampa. You can do anything, it's just like any other major city lol.

The people can suck, but usually only when you're driving lol. The education thing is also very true, which is why smart parents use the magnet system and private education.

I like it here. It's WAY better than Orlando. Sure there's probably better cities to live in, but I think Tampa's just fine lol.

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John said:

actual moral of this thread: grass is always greener.

i've lived in tampa, saint pete, gaineville for 4 years (school), new york, toronto, detroit, windsor, and vancouver. each place at least a year+ tampa area most of my life. there's nothing drastically wrong with tampa, sure big cities are better but gainesville? nahhh. if you go 2 miles from gaineville in any direction you're surrounded by inbred hicks.

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Shroomism said:

Tampa rules because that's where Death metal was born.

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NoOneKnowsHowToAct said:

John said:

actual moral of this thread: grass is always greener.

i've lived in tampa, saint pete, gaineville for 4 years (school), new york, toronto, detroit, windsor, and vancouver. each place at least a year+ tampa area most of my life. there's nothing drastically wrong with tampa, sure big cities are better but gainesville? nahhh. if you go 2 miles from gaineville in any direction you're surrounded by inbred hicks.

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+1

Shroomism said:

Tampa rules because that's where Death metal was born.

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+1

I actually see Pat Obrian from cannibal corpse pretty regularly. He lives near me and we both frequent the same bar. I talk to him on occasion. I also get to see other band members of cannibal corpse pretty regularly because of that as well, except for corpse grinder. I never see him although I've been told he frequents the brass mug. That's on the other side of town though - Pat Obrian literally lives down the street from me.

If Tampa sucks so much, where's better and why. Seriously.

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NoOneKnowsHowToAct said:

Nunbuh_Chrubble said:

Tell me where you go on a semi-regular basis to recreate in public without having to spend money, and which don't involve getting fucked up...

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Any of the numerous public parks. UTB is close to here so I frequent that. There's many other public parks as well. The beaches are nice in the summer as well (clearwater and st. pete).

I also have to answer with your same question though. Where do you go on a semi-regular basis in your city to recreate in public without having to spend money, and which doesn't involve getting fucked up.

Wherever it is, Tampa probably has the same thing.

I never lived in the USF area and I'm glad about that. Living in that area is probably why you don't like Tampa. It's not exactly a good area to live in lol. I would think that the fact that hookers are always seen strolling down the street on Nebraska would indicate that the area isn't exactly ideal.

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zSDMF said:

moral of this thread:

everything south of gainesville is shit.

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