How Florida Got So Weird

You left out one of the most vital things that led to the growth of Florida: the invention of modern air conditioning. Without it, Florida would still be nothing but a swamp.

Please, Wendover. Please don’t forget what’s important here. How does Florida factor in to airline logistics?

I was hoping this video was going to be about the Florida man phenomenon.

Florida is being ruined by overdevelopment, largely by big companies who come from out of state to capitalize on our resources and then underpay all of the local subcontractors. It’s become increasingly crowded and expensive over the past several years and many of my friends have moved away to escape these things, as well as the insane heat and humidity that descends anywhere from May to June and refuses to leave well into the fall.

Always interesting to see an outsider’s perspective. Henry Flagler did a lot to help Florida take off, but he’s an afterthought compared to air conditioning. Once AC became widely available, the population skyrocketed.

I'm Norwegian and naturally I've grown up and lived my entire life in a post-glacial mountainous country with forests and fjords with no sunlight for almost six months of the year. Florida seems like a totally different planet to me. I was in Jacksonville in April and it was so bizarre. It was so warm and sunny and flat.

As a Floridian, I can tell this guy is not from Florida. It was a good history lesson but it doesn’t explain why Florida is weird. It explains how Florida became popular.

My family has lived in Florida since before the Civil war. I was raised on a citrus nursery in central Florida for most of my life. The pace of development makes me sick, I'm 25 now but even in my lifetime seeing how things have changed is disheartening. I think that sometimes change can be good depending on the circumstances but change too quickly can be catastrophic. I have traveled for work seasonally as an adult and have been blessed to see much of the U.S. but each time I come back home to live in or visit family there's another subdivision, some new construction. I hear people in almost every state I've been to complain about outsiders and developers but the scale in Florida just seems unprecedented as a local. If you are a new resident or considering moving to Florida, even if you are a local, please be respectful of the land, the hardship that went into developing it and the ecosystems and cultures harmed because of expansion. For many years I thought that I hated Florida but in reality, I hated my own personal situation in it and the seemingly unsustainable growth going on here. Although I still prefer the mountains, Florida, REAL Florida, is a beautiful and unique state.

As a Floridian, I’d like to add something: the Ocala National Forest. This is a massive region of thousands and thousands of acres, with almost no major roads running through it, but just enough minor and unpaved roads that the really weird people can find places and form communities away from the watchful eye of the government. Around here, people are able to do a lot of illegal shit, but no one will really care, if they even knew. Imagine the deserts of New Mexico, but with a fuck load of trees to hide you. It breeds insanity.

Just a couple points worth mentioning: mangrove trees are literally what kept Florida intact before all of this. They keep the shorelines intact with their roots even during hurricanes. This also keeps the areas inland from having to get hit as hard by the water surges. By removing the mangroves to create beachfront property, they horribly ruined their own safety net. Not only that, but after Seminole tribes had been forced to relocate to Florida, now their land was being taken over AGAIN as the wealthy elite decided to create this miserable fantasy world for themselves.

I am a 4th generation Floridian, and I'm beginning to pay avid attention to this state's history. Every corner of it seems to have a fascinating story. Thank you for making this video.

My dad’s parents lived in the Villages in the last few years of their lives when i was in my early to mid teens. I visited when my grandfather died when i was maybe 16 and something just seemed so off to me. like it was a fake town masquerading as a real town. but i just couldn’t put my finger on what i meant by that. like is this a development or a town? it totally weirded me out. like i was in a simulation.

As an ecologist working in Florida. Words cannot describe how depressed it was watching you talk about the wonderful engineering that took place that absolutely decimated. The Everglades ruined the watershed and has led to countless algae blooms and die offs just so we can have more land south of Okachobee, where no one wants to live anyway.

The explanation I heard of for why Florida is weird is that their laws make police reports a matter of public record. So it's not so much that they have more weird crimes per capita as those weird crimes get reported on more often.

As a local I’m blown away with your great job doing the research on my hometown. I live in West Palm Beach and so many folks don’t know that we live in the servant quarters. A lot of us start out in life at restaurants on the island. The locals and new comers to our state that is. I remember my first time on the island without my parents. I was in high school and my girlfriends and I got a gig serving food in one of the mansions. Not many outsiders know our history with the island or Flagler but his name is plastered all around Florida. There are plaques everywhere teaching about our history and not many people read them. I do hope you enjoyed your time in our weird world that I absolutely love and adore because Flordia is my hometown. I am surprised that the Palm Beachers allowed you to take video footage especially the drone footage on the island. I’m sure you noticed that a lot of their homes are blocked off of Google earth. The island is all about exclusivity and secrecy.

Florida's wilderness is incredible, it's so tragic that the masses of people moving there see the environment as an obstacle to destroy instead of one of the best parts of the state

My best friend is an international student at a college close to Tampa, so when hurricane Ian hit the students had to evacuate, and where were they evacuated to you ask? The villages. Imagine some hundred college students just hanging out in this massive retirement community for like 4 days during a hurricane.

While modern Florida couldn't exist without it, the draining of the everglades and building of straight canals has wrecked the natrual ecosystem. It has to be the most manufactured place in the US.

Wow, surprised there was no mention of how Walt Disney completely transformed central Florida. Without Disney World, central Florida would be just another sleepy town because it wasn’t on the coast with a beach.

One thing that you seemed to leave out is that not all of Florida has been built up like the Villages. In fact, if you go a little further north of the villages you will run into more Florida wild. If you go to places like Kerr City you'll feel like you went back in time 60 years ago, except still with AC and modern electronics in your home. Not to mention the Everglades is still massive, except compared to what it was previously it is tiny. This was a very interesting video to watch, I enjoyed it a lot.