Hey, if you find it to your style, great. Personally, the dumbf***ery is off the scale, combined with the heat and humidity, it's not worth the supposed perks around state income taxes (they nickel and dime you everywhere else, and many of the state services are straight up shit) to offset the rampant bullshit.
Comparing prices and property taxes with Texas and seems comprable. As for stupid crap, been in the 3d world for 8yrs so can't be worse than here
Between Texas and Florida, I'd probably choose Texas because the state government seems a bit more functional, though, TX seems to be trying to catch up to Florida.
Florida is great if you don't require any state help. However, if you do at any point (including pretty standard infrastructure tasks, like roads), may god have mercy on your soul. The system is designed to be inefficient and slow. They actually had to admit the unemployment application website was designed to be hard to use so people would give up and not apply for UI.
I obviously can't speak to all of Florida since I've only lived in Lakeland, but it seems to attract a lot of burn outs. The two official state cars around me seem to be a mid sized truck raised on huge wheels with neons underneath and a 2005 Ford Mustang with a fabric top that has been sitting in the sun for 15 years and would likely disintegrate if you actually tried to take it off. Lot's of NIMBYs who will complain about bad cell service but show up at local town hall meetings if they dare put a new cell phone tower where they might have to see it from their backyard.
But seriously, I'm with Chain. The minute its feesible for my wife to get out of her contract....
My favorite study from post-grad was Cultures and Organizations, by Hofstede, Hofstede, and Minkov. It's really instructive on why people are the way they are. One of the more interesting parts of the study is the "individuality scale." It's a ranking from 1 to 100 on where particular cultures rank on the importance of individuality, and how they actually live. 100 is the highest score. The top three in order are the US (91), Australia (90), and UK (89). Canada comes in a tie for 4th with a score of 80.
I've lived in Germany, South Korea, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia (DC area), Kentucky, and Georgia. Mostly, the people in these areas act as the study suggests.
If you like efficiency, go to South Korea or Germany. Just know that you're giving up some personal freedoms, and the government will be more involved in your life. South Korean culture scored an 18 on the individuality chart. The government there is centralized and it's insanely easy to get most things done, as the people are really compliant with their officials. But when the government officials are wrong, it's the lemming effect, since everyone has likely complied.
Germany is not quite as compliant (score of 67) but personal discipline tends to be greater.
Individuality in the southern part of the US is more important, as southerners default to their local government (town, county), and tend to see higher levels of government (state, federal) as disconnected when dealing with local issues. States like NY and PA tend to solve problems at the State level, and the people are ok with it.
As far as the dumbf#ckery goes, there's plenty of dumba$$es in New York and PA. It looks different, but it's still there.
Our choice came down to Texas and South Carolina. We never once considered going back to NY or PA. I'm not interested in a state bureaucrat making choices for me, which are clearly better made at the town and county level. And we'd rather have the insane heat for three months than 6 months of $hitty winter.
South Carolina tends to be well run at the State level because they hire a lot of retired military personnel, who understand organizations and processes. The director of the DMV, for example, is a retired Army officer. He hires a lot of retired military. The DMVs are extremely well run.
The SC government also understands, and is comfortable with, delegation of authority. All of the COVID precautions were delegated to from State to county/town level. That's a military thing as well, as delegation of authority is a military necessity.
We thought about Texas, but it was kind of a tie, and we were already in SC, so we didn't want to move.
