i grew up and lived there for more than a quarter century. it is one of the worst places in the US. the police violence and background level of stochastic violence are remarkable. you would probably have to be in some low-intensity conflict / unstable demilitarized zone to find something more overtly fucked up, which is only because Orlando isn't littered with unexploded ordinance to make IEDs out of. shit absolutely pops the fuck off in the places tourists aren't found. sometimes its the cops doing it. sometimes it's not cops. it is an angry, overpoliced city and the people running it seem committed to making the place Thunderdome by gutting or crushing any infrastructure that aids people caught between the gears.
if you want to go anywhere, you're in a car. the volume of 6+ lane highways and gargantuan parking lots is disorienting. i swear to christ, you could stand on the curb in front of a business and not see the business across the street due to the curvature of the earth. there are a shitload of areas that don't even have sidewalks. and there's going to be shit traffic unless you take toll roads. not long before i left, orlando was #1 in the US for incidents of road rage that ended in assault and incidents of road rage ending in homicide. news stories about people shooting at each other on roads are only making the evening news if a cute kid gets clipped or a celebrity is involved.
i have lived, traveled, and wandered around many other places in the US with supposedly rough reputations, and almost everywhere feels like goddamn Mayberry RFD compared to Orlando. i hate going back for family shit.
everywhere you look there is anger, desperation, corruption and grifting. the damn sports arena is named after Amway. if i was told i had to live and work there for a year or die in agony, i would choose to die in agony.
i grew up and lived there for more than a quarter century. it is one of the worst places in the US. the police violence and background level of stochastic violence are remarkable. you would probably have to be in some low-intensity conflict / unstable demilitarized zone to find something more overtly fucked up, which is only because Orlando isn't littered with unexploded ordinance to make IEDs out of. shit absolutely pops the fuck off in the places tourists aren't found. sometimes its the cops doing it. sometimes it's not cops. it is an angry, overpoliced city and the people running it seem committed to making the place Thunderdome by gutting or crushing any infrastructure that aids people caught between the gears.
if you want to go anywhere, you're in a car. the volume of 6+ lane highways and gargantuan parking lots is disorienting. i swear to christ, you could stand on the curb in front of a business and not see the business across the street due to the curvature of the earth. there are a shitload of areas that don't even have sidewalks. and there's going to be shit traffic unless you take toll roads. not long before i left, orlando was #1 in the US for incidents of road rage that ended in assault and incidents of road rage ending in homicide. news stories about people shooting at each other on roads are only making the evening news if a cute kid gets clipped or a celebrity is involved.
i have lived, traveled, and wandered around many other places in the US with supposedly rough reputations, and almost everywhere feels like goddamn Mayberry RFD compared to Orlando. i hate going back for family shit.
everywhere you look there is anger, desperation, corruption and grifting. the damn sports arena is named after Amway. if i was told i had to live and work there for a year or die in agony, i would choose to die in agony.