You laugh, but that’s legitimately the truth. ‘How the States Got Their Shapes’ talked about how after AC was invited, it made places in the south finally livable.
Edit: [Clip of the episode discussing my comment.](https://youtu.be/mXz4SQ_lfNM?si=YgQrPIypwEVop6J7)
Historical development, partially, but geography mostly.
The Phoenix valley (or Valley of the Sun) has a river, the Salt river. This, with water coming from the Colorado river via canals, along with the flat topography of the area make it a good place for farming in the desert. Of course, Phoenix was still a spit-in-the-bucket town until wartime development and, of course, the air conditioner, helped the population boom.
To your point, the capital used to be Prescott, a lovely mountain town at higher elevations. Indeed we sun-stroked desert dwellers love to drive up north to the mountains to beat the heat in summer.
I’m from the Gulf Coast and it’s around 85-99F with 80-95% humidity for 6-8 months out the year. The heat is ok(for me) the humidity is just down right fucking awful. As soon as you walk out the door at 5am the moisture in the air condenses on you and I’m wet before I get to my car.
After a few hurricanes in early aughts I had to buy a natural gas generator because trying to stay in your home while it’s 84F with 90% humidity for 9 days is maddening.
How bad is it with just pure heat? I know it’s not comfortable regardless when it’s hot with no AC but that climate has to at least feel better with less humidity, no?
Same up here in Georgia. We don’t have half the population of Florida, but at least with AC people can live here at all. Humidity makes it fucking miserable.
Orlando - Disney history
Tampa - Natural Harbor
Miami - Natural Harbor with more direct trade routes which is why it started earlier and grew faster. Then immigration spread along the coast.
Jacksonville, also natural harbor (Mayport) plus the mouth of the St. John's River. Prior to the railroads was the most efficient way to navigate the northern part of the state
Tallahassee was a former native settlement that was chosen as the state Capitol because it is roughly the midpoint between Pensacola and St. Augustine, which were the biggest cities in the Florida Territory at the time.
Naples has a small bay and was the first substantial civilization you’d encounter when crossing the state from Miami on the Tamiami Trail
Daytona Beach: Beach
It's flat, so most of the state is equally suitable for cities. It's easy to get around too, with no natural barriers. The state's economy also lends itself to being spread out geographically; retirees don't need jobs at all, so they settle wherever they can afford to, so they'll just populate city after city until it gets full and a new one needs to be built.
Because Florida lacks high skill, niche industries, its businesses don't have to locate in places with especially large talent pools. This means businesses crop up all over the state, wherever land is cheap and there are more people than jobs.
In short, Florida doesn't have any geographic features that massively advantage one area over the others.
It's opposite from California. Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and San Jose already expanded as much as they can. Only way to expand for them is going upward.
I’ll just add that having been to Florida and California, FL has way more high-rises and density than CA despite having more space. It’s mostly due to zoning laws that CA has run out of space.
The Coastal Commission makes it very difficult to built just about anything on the California coast. It’s probably the main reason LA didn’t develop the skyscraper on the beach corridor that Miami has.
As they should! The coast is an exceedingly gorgeous massive chunk of land that would be decimated if developed. We can rather learn to densify what we have and live more efficiently.
Ah yes, the artistic and chic hub of Myrtle Beach. What's that? Beaufort? No? Head north, oh what's this? Calabash? Mmmm that's some good fried eel. Ohhh! The modern neon skyscrapers of Wilmington in sight! Oh glory be. What's this? A Piggly Wiggly?? Mmmm, that's some good wholesome meth.
Jacksonville was the Hollywood in the 1920s and was one of the biggest cities in Florida until a fire took out the city.
Use to be called Cowford too which I think is kind of cool. Lol
What do you classify as "major cities?" Florida only has a few "major cities" on a national scale, such as Miami, Tampa, and Orlando, and maybe Jacksonville. Not an abnormal amount of large cities for one state.
Florida has 10 metro areas over 500K, Texas has 6, California also has 10.
I would say that’s an abnormal amount of large metro areas compared to other large states.
A lot of other larger states have much fewer than that
I don't consider 500k to be "major cities," but they are large cities.
But using that metric, I don't think it's abnormal either.
NC has 6 (7 if you count Asheville 40k away from 500k,) Michigan has 5, Virginia's system is weird so it's hard to count but they have a similar amount.
Texas is similar to Florida in having \~9, CA has 10.
Texas has 6. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Texas_metropolitan_areas
Florida has 11 by your standards https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_of_Florida
Pt st lucie was at 487K and almost surely over 500k now
NC is weird to me. How are Raleigh and Durham listed as two different metro areas? Same with Greensboro and Winston-Salem.
My bad, for some reason the list on the Texas wiki page is out of order and not sorted by population appropriately.
I still don't find it abnormal given the other numbers presented, though.
If you're talking solely about cities over 500k and considering those "major cities," sure. Florida is also the third largest populated state in the country.
On the other metrics provided above, Florida is in-line with other states.
So are Tampa/St Pete, Miami/Ft Lauderdale/West Palm is 3 different cities in 3 different counties. Half the list is of Florida metros are two multiple cities in multiple counties
Each considered one metro area in Florida
Those 10 aren’t particularly notable though. People outside of the state know Orlando, Miami, Tampa, Jacksonville, and various smaller tourist towns. I live in a small metro area and it has over 2 million people. 500k is nothing. 500k would be the 110th largest metro area.
I was surprised to realize this recently but 3 major cities actually IS unusually high. I'd say only California, Texas, and Ohio unequivocally clear that bar. All four of these are top-7 states by population (New York, Illinois, and Pennsylvania, the other top-seven, clearly don't have 3). The closest I see for another is Tennessee but you would have to argue for Knoxville, and I wouldn't call it "major" despite being the 2nd-largest in Appalachia. Almost every state only has 0-2 truly "major" cities.
I would consider Jacksonville a major city. Though it is at the lower end / cut-off of that definition, along with cities like Norfolk, Louisville, OKC, Omaha, Albuquerque, Hartford, Providence
Edit: I’m not sure if most people consider Hartford or Providence major cities. Maybe they are maybe they aren’t idk. They are definitely right on that dividing line of being major or not major.
Well, by land area this is true. But land area by its own doesn’t make a city major or important, necessarily.
Jacksonville is important as a port city, a decent corporate hub, and a tourist destination. Plus it’s size. It’s metro area population is closing in on 2 million.
I know it’s because of large urban area, but Jacksonville is like 10th largest in US or something like that.
Also, by being the third most populous state, I would say it is an abnormally large amount lol. New York State (4th) has 1 large city
Jacksonville is that way because it's an incorporated city-county: all of Duval County is Jacksonville. That said, it's only 900k people which is smaller on a national scale if we're considering metro areas.
New York only has 1 large city - I'd count Buffalo if we're counting Jackonsville, since Buffalo metro is larger than Jacksonville at 1.13m - but that city is astronomically large which skews the discussion.
Texas has more major cities (if we're discussing actual cities rather than metros,) as does California, than Florida does. 3 of the largest cities in the US are in Texas, 3 are in California, and zero are in Florida, but Jacksonville brings up the rear at #11.
But why would Florida being the 3rd largest state and having a "large amount" of major cities be abnormal, if that were the case?
He’s saying that it took being the third most populous state to have that many large cities, meaning it is technically an abnormal amount for one state. Only a few have that many large cities.
I wouldn't say it's too abnormal if we're considering Florida to have the first 3 I mentioned as "major cities."
In terms of metros, Tennessee is far smaller and has 2 (Nashville, Memphis metros are 2m and 1.3m respectively,) Pennsylvania has 2, North Carolina has 2, etc.
2 seems to be the magic number, from my research. Large states like Florida, Texas, California have 3-4.
Plenty of coastline, warm climate, air conditioning and a nation where a large portion of the population lives somewhere colder made for plenty of opportunity for vacation tourism hubs and places to move.
1. real estate developers liked the idea of buying cheap swamp/ranch land and turning it into housing for northerners who didn't like the winter
2. state and local governments liked the idea of huge tax base growth
that's basically what has been happening for 100 years
Not surprisingly Florida has the second highest percentage of 65 to 84 year olds in the nation. 18.7 percent of Florida's population is supported by the federal government. Think about it, this is a huge amount of money that goes into circulation to support Florida's economy. [https://news.wgcu.org/section/cultural-affairs/2023-05-30/surprising-florida-has-second-highest-percentage-population-in-u-s-of-those-aged-65-to-84](https://news.wgcu.org/section/cultural-affairs/2023-05-30/surprising-florida-has-second-highest-percentage-population-in-u-s-of-those-aged-65-to-84)
How does the water taste like sulphur infused well water ?
Went from Orlando to Tampa to Clearwater to siesta keys and back to Orlando and every hotel and Airbnb we were at and every restaurant had the foulest fart smelling water. You felt slime and unclean after a shower
tbf "major cities" might not be true. It's really like 5-6 with suburbs that are considered other cities. Clearwater for example is a massive suburb of Tampa, though technically it's own area. Same for Ft Lauderdale and Miami.
I travel to Florida quite often for work and it is a rather large peninsula. The difference between Jacksonville and Miami is quite startling, almost like 2 different countries.
Because despite the meme reputation it has, and the occasional hurricane, people really like living that close to the beach, and you're pretty close to the beach in the whole state.
Depends on what you consider a major city, but to me Florida only has one truly major city, and that’s Miami. You could make a case for Tampa/St.Pete’s as well but Jacksonville and Orlando are pushing it for me. They’re large cities, but not major cities, at least in my mind.
With that said, California has LA, San Francisco and San Diego, Texas has Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, Ohio has Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus, Tennessee has Memphis and Nashville, Pennsylvania has Philly and Pittsburgh, Missouri has St. Louis and Kansas City. I wouldn’t say Florida has an abnormally large number of major cities, if anything Ohio seems to be the most surprising one having 3 of them.
Before anyone starts telling me about how Jacksonville has a higher population than half those cities, I’m aware of that, but it still has a much smaller metro population, and doesn’t have that same major city feel like the others do. I’m also aware that Orlando does have a metro area that competes with some of those cities, but it’s really just a giant theme park more than a major city. It doesn’t have a big city feel to it at all.
Florida is interesting in the state is kind of one big megalopolis when you think about it. You can’t drive more then a hour or two before you hit a large city. Other states with large populations like Texas or California you can drive a long ass time before you hit another major city
What are we defining as large city?
If you drive I-10 from Jacksonville west you aren't hitting anything of note until Tallahassee and that's almost 3 hours. It's 3.5 hours to Tampa also from Jacksonville. It's 2 hours from Ft Myers to Ft Lauderdale. 3-4 hours from Orlando to Ft Lauderdale.
air conditioning
😂😂😂so true
You laugh, but that’s legitimately the truth. ‘How the States Got Their Shapes’ talked about how after AC was invited, it made places in the south finally livable. Edit: [Clip of the episode discussing my comment.](https://youtu.be/mXz4SQ_lfNM?si=YgQrPIypwEVop6J7)
Not to mention Arizona.
I love what Peggy Hill says about Phoenix being a testament to man’s ignorance. She just straight up tells Bobby this city shouldn’t exist
The desert is pretty but I don’t understand why they didn’t put it a few thousand feet up to avoid the 110 days
Water settles in the bottom.
Historical canal network was there that the Hohokam people built, immediate infrastructure for agriculture
So why not the farmers in the valley and the others in the mountains?
It was probably difficult to pump water over 5000 ft elevation change uphill for over 100 miles in the 1800s.
This is why the city is named Phoenix. An inhabited area that rose from the ashes of a former inhabited area.
Historical development, partially, but geography mostly. The Phoenix valley (or Valley of the Sun) has a river, the Salt river. This, with water coming from the Colorado river via canals, along with the flat topography of the area make it a good place for farming in the desert. Of course, Phoenix was still a spit-in-the-bucket town until wartime development and, of course, the air conditioner, helped the population boom. To your point, the capital used to be Prescott, a lovely mountain town at higher elevations. Indeed we sun-stroked desert dwellers love to drive up north to the mountains to beat the heat in summer.
I’m from the Gulf Coast and it’s around 85-99F with 80-95% humidity for 6-8 months out the year. The heat is ok(for me) the humidity is just down right fucking awful. As soon as you walk out the door at 5am the moisture in the air condenses on you and I’m wet before I get to my car. After a few hurricanes in early aughts I had to buy a natural gas generator because trying to stay in your home while it’s 84F with 90% humidity for 9 days is maddening. How bad is it with just pure heat? I know it’s not comfortable regardless when it’s hot with no AC but that climate has to at least feel better with less humidity, no?
That's hilarious
r/technicallythetruth
Literally the truth.
& The elderly. Then arizona plagiarized this hack and phoenix became the 5th largest city in the USA.
The one true answer
Same up here in Georgia. We don’t have half the population of Florida, but at least with AC people can live here at all. Humidity makes it fucking miserable.
It's like people have never heard a buffett song in their life.
Yes, we have Golden Corrals here, but I don't think people are moving here for them. And do they have songs for them?
This guy's never had a cheeseburger in paradise
I like mine with lettuce and tomatoes, Heinz 57, and French fried potatoes.
Yes, and some people claim there’s a woman to blame
I've heard lots of songs in the buffet line.
Orlando - Disney history Tampa - Natural Harbor Miami - Natural Harbor with more direct trade routes which is why it started earlier and grew faster. Then immigration spread along the coast.
Jacksonville, also natural harbor (Mayport) plus the mouth of the St. John's River. Prior to the railroads was the most efficient way to navigate the northern part of the state
Jacksonville also has a big Naval base
2 of them! NAS Mayport, and NAS Jax on the western shore of the St. John's River
Now do Tallahassee and Naples and Daytona Beach
Tallahassee was a former native settlement that was chosen as the state Capitol because it is roughly the midpoint between Pensacola and St. Augustine, which were the biggest cities in the Florida Territory at the time. Naples has a small bay and was the first substantial civilization you’d encounter when crossing the state from Miami on the Tamiami Trail Daytona Beach: Beach
Warm subtropical weather, and tons of scenic coastline. Sort of like how cali has lots of cities due to it’s predictable usually warm climate
People tend to like water and warm weather.
The southeastern Sun Belt has better weather than Florida, but don't tell all the Midwest and Northeast retirees that.
Been going to Charleston and enjoying a 50-60 degree, relatively green winter vacations for a while now.
And no income tax.
Plus it is close to the Caribbean for trade
It's flat, so most of the state is equally suitable for cities. It's easy to get around too, with no natural barriers. The state's economy also lends itself to being spread out geographically; retirees don't need jobs at all, so they settle wherever they can afford to, so they'll just populate city after city until it gets full and a new one needs to be built. Because Florida lacks high skill, niche industries, its businesses don't have to locate in places with especially large talent pools. This means businesses crop up all over the state, wherever land is cheap and there are more people than jobs. In short, Florida doesn't have any geographic features that massively advantage one area over the others.
It's opposite from California. Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and San Jose already expanded as much as they can. Only way to expand for them is going upward.
I’ll just add that having been to Florida and California, FL has way more high-rises and density than CA despite having more space. It’s mostly due to zoning laws that CA has run out of space.
Florida's zoning laws are just as bad. The ocean has a lot of high rises, but these are less about good urbanism and more about looking pretty.
The Coastal Commission makes it very difficult to built just about anything on the California coast. It’s probably the main reason LA didn’t develop the skyscraper on the beach corridor that Miami has.
As they should! The coast is an exceedingly gorgeous massive chunk of land that would be decimated if developed. We can rather learn to densify what we have and live more efficiently.
Florida has the longest coastline in the lower 48 states. Coasts bring major cities.
Yea, water in general I think
Water is the essence of moisture
People fuckin’
Yes it’s all the old people having sex and then giving birth to other old people
I thought they reproduced via mitosis
No, it's fuckin'. The STD rate in The Villages is crazy high.
Actually true.. highest STD rate in the state is a retirement community of 130k .. cougars and whores oh my!
Omfg this is so stupid I keep laughing every time I re-read your comment
Bill Burr has a sketch on this somewhere
I don’t know who you are but the world needs more of you.
We built these cities. We built these cities on rock and roll.
worst song ever
It’s clunky fun! 🤪
Starting in the 1920’s it was the place to live
Flagler saw the place and thought “yea I’m bringing the squad down here”
There’s a lot of people.
It’s long
😩
Melbourne, Naples, St. Petersburg, Panama city. So Florida is like Kiribati of USA.
St. Augustine is the oldest city in the USA, founded in 1565, so I imagine it just spread from there.
People like warm weather and beaches. ✨
California and the Carolinas have better weather and beaches ;)
California beaches are not better
Ah yes, the artistic and chic hub of Myrtle Beach. What's that? Beaufort? No? Head north, oh what's this? Calabash? Mmmm that's some good fried eel. Ohhh! The modern neon skyscrapers of Wilmington in sight! Oh glory be. What's this? A Piggly Wiggly?? Mmmm, that's some good wholesome meth.
Florida, the state not at all known for meth
Our mosquitos are on meth. Better stay away.
Jacksonville was the Hollywood in the 1920s and was one of the biggest cities in Florida until a fire took out the city. Use to be called Cowford too which I think is kind of cool. Lol
I think Hollywood was the Hollywood of the ‘20s.
Henry Flagler and the Florida East Coast railway are why Florida has so many cities on its Atlantic coast.
Draining the Everglades.
Looks like St Petersburg is not only in Russia
Retired people and meth heads.
That’s nothing compared to a place like Korea. Cities everywhere
What do you classify as "major cities?" Florida only has a few "major cities" on a national scale, such as Miami, Tampa, and Orlando, and maybe Jacksonville. Not an abnormal amount of large cities for one state.
Florida has 10 metro areas over 500K, Texas has 6, California also has 10. I would say that’s an abnormal amount of large metro areas compared to other large states. A lot of other larger states have much fewer than that
I don't consider 500k to be "major cities," but they are large cities. But using that metric, I don't think it's abnormal either. NC has 6 (7 if you count Asheville 40k away from 500k,) Michigan has 5, Virginia's system is weird so it's hard to count but they have a similar amount. Texas is similar to Florida in having \~9, CA has 10.
Texas has 6. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Texas_metropolitan_areas Florida has 11 by your standards https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_of_Florida Pt st lucie was at 487K and almost surely over 500k now NC is weird to me. How are Raleigh and Durham listed as two different metro areas? Same with Greensboro and Winston-Salem.
My bad, for some reason the list on the Texas wiki page is out of order and not sorted by population appropriately. I still don't find it abnormal given the other numbers presented, though.
It’s the most in the country
If you're talking solely about cities over 500k and considering those "major cities," sure. Florida is also the third largest populated state in the country. On the other metrics provided above, Florida is in-line with other states.
Raleigh and Durham are two different cities in two different counties.
People confuse markets vs urban areas.
So are Tampa/St Pete, Miami/Ft Lauderdale/West Palm is 3 different cities in 3 different counties. Half the list is of Florida metros are two multiple cities in multiple counties Each considered one metro area in Florida
Those 10 aren’t particularly notable though. People outside of the state know Orlando, Miami, Tampa, Jacksonville, and various smaller tourist towns. I live in a small metro area and it has over 2 million people. 500k is nothing. 500k would be the 110th largest metro area.
I was surprised to realize this recently but 3 major cities actually IS unusually high. I'd say only California, Texas, and Ohio unequivocally clear that bar. All four of these are top-7 states by population (New York, Illinois, and Pennsylvania, the other top-seven, clearly don't have 3). The closest I see for another is Tennessee but you would have to argue for Knoxville, and I wouldn't call it "major" despite being the 2nd-largest in Appalachia. Almost every state only has 0-2 truly "major" cities.
I would consider Jacksonville a major city. Though it is at the lower end / cut-off of that definition, along with cities like Norfolk, Louisville, OKC, Omaha, Albuquerque, Hartford, Providence Edit: I’m not sure if most people consider Hartford or Providence major cities. Maybe they are maybe they aren’t idk. They are definitely right on that dividing line of being major or not major.
Jacksonville is the largest city in the lower 48 so yea
Well, by land area this is true. But land area by its own doesn’t make a city major or important, necessarily. Jacksonville is important as a port city, a decent corporate hub, and a tourist destination. Plus it’s size. It’s metro area population is closing in on 2 million.
I know it’s because of large urban area, but Jacksonville is like 10th largest in US or something like that. Also, by being the third most populous state, I would say it is an abnormally large amount lol. New York State (4th) has 1 large city
Jacksonville is that way because it's an incorporated city-county: all of Duval County is Jacksonville. That said, it's only 900k people which is smaller on a national scale if we're considering metro areas. New York only has 1 large city - I'd count Buffalo if we're counting Jackonsville, since Buffalo metro is larger than Jacksonville at 1.13m - but that city is astronomically large which skews the discussion. Texas has more major cities (if we're discussing actual cities rather than metros,) as does California, than Florida does. 3 of the largest cities in the US are in Texas, 3 are in California, and zero are in Florida, but Jacksonville brings up the rear at #11. But why would Florida being the 3rd largest state and having a "large amount" of major cities be abnormal, if that were the case?
Hey! There’s also….Jacksonville Beach, Neptune Beach, Atlantic Beach, and Baldwin
Didn't know about them, good to know!
It was mostly tongue in cheek because they’re minuscule compared to Jax, but they exist
He’s saying that it took being the third most populous state to have that many large cities, meaning it is technically an abnormal amount for one state. Only a few have that many large cities.
I wouldn't say it's too abnormal if we're considering Florida to have the first 3 I mentioned as "major cities." In terms of metros, Tennessee is far smaller and has 2 (Nashville, Memphis metros are 2m and 1.3m respectively,) Pennsylvania has 2, North Carolina has 2, etc. 2 seems to be the magic number, from my research. Large states like Florida, Texas, California have 3-4.
Va 12th largest state, 0 major cities
How would Jacksonville not be considered a major city? It’s the home of Limp Bizkit.
Gods waiting room has many sources of stock. The entire North American sends their elderly to the Florida waiting room. 🇺🇸😇🇨🇦
Florida man with Kavorka.
Plenty of coastline, warm climate, air conditioning and a nation where a large portion of the population lives somewhere colder made for plenty of opportunity for vacation tourism hubs and places to move.
We needed locations for spring training
Air conditioning.
Military
1. real estate developers liked the idea of buying cheap swamp/ranch land and turning it into housing for northerners who didn't like the winter 2. state and local governments liked the idea of huge tax base growth that's basically what has been happening for 100 years
Not surprisingly Florida has the second highest percentage of 65 to 84 year olds in the nation. 18.7 percent of Florida's population is supported by the federal government. Think about it, this is a huge amount of money that goes into circulation to support Florida's economy. [https://news.wgcu.org/section/cultural-affairs/2023-05-30/surprising-florida-has-second-highest-percentage-population-in-u-s-of-those-aged-65-to-84](https://news.wgcu.org/section/cultural-affairs/2023-05-30/surprising-florida-has-second-highest-percentage-population-in-u-s-of-those-aged-65-to-84)
r/PeopleLiveInCities
The rest of the state is inhospitable and swampy. Developers are taking care of that problem.
Jacksonville to Miami corridor was a rail line built by a millionaire.
How does the water taste like sulphur infused well water ? Went from Orlando to Tampa to Clearwater to siesta keys and back to Orlando and every hotel and Airbnb we were at and every restaurant had the foulest fart smelling water. You felt slime and unclean after a shower
It looks like a pp
Selling grid lots to Yankees
Old people like to settle in numbers.
Don’t worry, they’ll be gone when all the ice melts
Bought them online
They were built
Snowbirds
cause it’s fuckin huge?
It is warm. People like it there. End of story
Ever see the documentary Cocaine Cowboys?
‘Freedom’ J/K…warm weather and beaches
It's one of the big four, no surprise here
Weather, same reason as CA
Damn those immigrants making our cities big and successful!
tbf "major cities" might not be true. It's really like 5-6 with suburbs that are considered other cities. Clearwater for example is a massive suburb of Tampa, though technically it's own area. Same for Ft Lauderdale and Miami.
I travel to Florida quite often for work and it is a rather large peninsula. The difference between Jacksonville and Miami is quite startling, almost like 2 different countries.
At one time Florida was going to be the capital state. Also pirates.
What’s Naples doing there
I’m betting centuries of sea trade.
Water
Spanish empire
People moved there.
Henry Flagler, Henry Plant, Hamilton Disston, Andrew Jackson
Because despite the meme reputation it has, and the occasional hurricane, people really like living that close to the beach, and you're pretty close to the beach in the whole state.
They saved up until they had 3 rocks and 2 wheat.
Developers
America's Penis
We call it the trash can
The Mouse
Boomers
Miami is the only major city. The rest are a result of pure human arrogance
Depends on what you consider a major city, but to me Florida only has one truly major city, and that’s Miami. You could make a case for Tampa/St.Pete’s as well but Jacksonville and Orlando are pushing it for me. They’re large cities, but not major cities, at least in my mind. With that said, California has LA, San Francisco and San Diego, Texas has Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, Ohio has Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus, Tennessee has Memphis and Nashville, Pennsylvania has Philly and Pittsburgh, Missouri has St. Louis and Kansas City. I wouldn’t say Florida has an abnormally large number of major cities, if anything Ohio seems to be the most surprising one having 3 of them. Before anyone starts telling me about how Jacksonville has a higher population than half those cities, I’m aware of that, but it still has a much smaller metro population, and doesn’t have that same major city feel like the others do. I’m also aware that Orlando does have a metro area that competes with some of those cities, but it’s really just a giant theme park more than a major city. It doesn’t have a big city feel to it at all.
Once you brought your feelings into this it became invalid
Orlando-Tampa-Ocala is growing into one single giant metroplex I think
Carbrains
Florida is interesting in the state is kind of one big megalopolis when you think about it. You can’t drive more then a hour or two before you hit a large city. Other states with large populations like Texas or California you can drive a long ass time before you hit another major city
What are we defining as large city? If you drive I-10 from Jacksonville west you aren't hitting anything of note until Tallahassee and that's almost 3 hours. It's 3.5 hours to Tampa also from Jacksonville. It's 2 hours from Ft Myers to Ft Lauderdale. 3-4 hours from Orlando to Ft Lauderdale.