Does Your South Florida City Suck? An Investigation.

You know that feeling when you go out of town and people ask where you’re from and you say, “Miami,” and everyone acts all impressed, except that one guy in the corner who says, “Oh yeah, where exactly?” Because he knows 1) you’re probably from some other city in Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, or the Keys and don’t really feel like explaining where “Lighthouse Point” is, and 2) that it probably sucks. And here’s why:

You have condos on your city seal. It probably came down to that or geriatric New Yorkers.
 

You know what's a great way to drop $1,000 in an afternoon? One T-shirt and a speeding ticket.
 

It is impossible to say "Boca" without sounding like a girl from Spanish River who got a 3 Series and an AmEx for her 16th birthday.
 

You re-elected John Sims. Possibly the nastiest politician in South Florida. The nastiest politician... in SOUTH FLORIDA. That’s kinda like being the most delusional guy in Gainesville.

Funny that a city that outlawed pickup trucks in the driveway would also have street signs that you can only see... waitforit!... from pickup trucks.
 

Ohhh… auto mall! Anddddd…
 

See Coral Springs, but take away the auto mall and add “really depressing casino.”
 

Change your name all you want, it still smells like Cutler Ridge.
 

You’re home to a university that’ll admit anyone with $40,000 and a pulse, multiple country-Western bars, and a football team full of guys who get paid. Basically, you’re an SEC college town.
 

Nice parade and garlic fest. But when half your population still resides at Kings Point it explains why your “Farm to Table Fusion Bistro” has to have an Early Bird.
 

Your three biggest attractions are 1) a jail, 2) a golf course named after a guy with a bad toupee, and 3) the most horrendous rush-hour street traffic in South Florida. Enjoy that 90 minute wait at Ale House while you “ride it out.”

You gave the world Marilyn Manson and Spirit Airlines. Um, thanks?
 

You’re the sixth largest city in Florida, but account for 98% of its on-street shellfish sales and 100% of its on-freeway mayoral punch outs. Also, can we stop with the street grid now?
 

Broward’s little quirky beach town. If by “quirky” you mean “boardwalk full of transients.”
 

If Orlando and Hialeah had a congested, trashy, chain-filled, teenage offspring, it would be living at home, working at a cell phone store, and driving a leased Jetta somewhere on SW 167th Ave.
 

Somehow The Beach Boys failed to mention the beaches are about on par with Lake Erie and there are no entertainment options after sunset.
 

Florida’s version of Vegas. By day three you’ll just want a flight home and multiple showers.
 

You’re a city of 10,000 Paul Castronovos. Tommy Bahama has entire wings of its factories named after you.
 

Those condo towers are cute, but lest we forget that not long ago you were about an hour away from complete dissolution and are a Latin American market crash away from another one. Probably why you were named the Most Miserable City in America, an honor shared by such luminaries as Stockton and Detroit.

When the entire place is underwater in 15 years, where will all the people who moved here because they loved it on vacation go to spend those six months they “live” in Miami?
 

No matter how much you like to pride yourself on being some sort of enclave of happiness, Hialeah is still your neighbor.
 

Pembroke Pines minus the mall. Plus the crime.
 

Still wayyyyy more Oakland than Park, no matter how many funky breweries open.  
 

Best Arabian-themed crack-house architecture in America!
 

Sorry, but you're the poor man’s Pinecrest.
 

You’re the tenth largest city in Florida but still somehow known as “Broward’s Kendall," which is kinda like being known as "Anywhere's Cleveland."
 

The downside of being the only normal neighborhood in Miami is that you have cops who actually enforce traffic violations. 

A world-class destination for harness racing. What’s harness racing, you ask? Exactly.

You were cool before you bulldozed the Rascal House. Now you’re Moscow with better weather, uglier buildings, and less-subtle prostitutes.

You better pray they never build that super mega-mall or your only claim to fame will be the Las Vegas Panthers.

There’s nothing “sweet” about water that comes up to your armpits.

A great place if you happened to land here from 1998 and find yourself in desperate need of a calling card or a travel agent.

All you need to know is that MTV once set a teenage reality show here.

Great place. Nothing wrong with it at all. Please don’t boycott us.

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