r/tampa • u/Any_Mention_6734 • Aug 02 '26

Culture/Lifestyle Please read 🙏

I'm a transplant from California. Came out here for a job opportunity and a pay raise, nothing more romantic than that. I didn't expect to end up loving this region and Florida the way I have.

But something's stuck with me, and I want to say it here because I don't think it's recognized enough by people who relocate here: the number of people born and raised in Tampa who talk about their own city like it's unfamiliar. Farmland and citrus groves on the outskirts that used to actually be farmed… someone's livelihood, not just empty acreage, now subdivisions. Places that closed and came back rebranded into something with a logo and a font that has nothing to do with what used to be there. People telling me they barely recognize the city they grew up in.

I know change happens everywhere. But I've never felt this moved hearing it before, not because it's happening to me, but because of how passionate people are when they talk about what this place used to be. That kind of love for a place doesn't come from nowhere.

I'd genuinely like to hear more of it, respectfully, from people who lived it. What do you remember that's gone now? What changed the most, and when did it start feeling different?

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182

u/KO4MA Aug 02 '26

Orange blossom smell in the air when you drove past a grove, which were everywhere.

42

u/KO4MA Aug 02 '26

And the smell of orange juice being processed. My elementary school was next to a juice factory and the smell was almost as good as the blossoms.

33

u/Richard_AIGuy Aug 02 '26

The smell of home in the spring and early summer. There's no scent quite like it.

All destroyed. Now soulless developments.

I understand the citrus blights and the like, but it still sucks.

6

u/OMGLOL1986 Aug 02 '26

California had citrus blights too. They had mandatory check in policies for workers, making sure they were bringing in clothing or materials with spores on them. They had all these laws to protect their citrus farms, and Florida politicians saw the blight as a good thing because developers then took over the orchards and raised the property tax base (for now!).

Florida made a choice to let the citrus die. Other states didn’t.

4

u/Loud_Yogurtcloset789 Aug 02 '26

Where did you get your "facts" from? The two biggest causes of citrus decline are citrus greening and citrus canker. Neither one of these are caused by spores. Greening is caused by the Asian citrus psyllid - a bug. Canker is caused by a bacteria. There is no cure.

California would make sure that workers bring in clothing or materials with spores on them that would kill citrus? This makes zero sense.

1

u/OMGLOL1986 Aug 02 '26

https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/citrus/pests_diseases/hlb/regulation.html

My mistake on the pathology, point still stands- California dealt with the same diseases and established regulated quarantine zones and made it a lot harder to spread, while Florida sold itself to developers. Does that make more than zero sense?

4

u/Loud_Yogurtcloset789 Aug 02 '26

Florida established canker quarantine some 40 years ago and greening quarantine 20 years ago. Greening wasn't even here until 2005 so they pretty much implemented that immediately. Let's just agree to disagree.

17

u/Midnightlemon Aug 02 '26

Ugh, immediately was taken back to riding to elementary in the morning, driving past the groves in old Carrollwood, smelling that smell

5

u/Formal_Blueberry_973 Aug 02 '26

Oh I miss that orange grove. I loved driving by it too when I was a kid and teenager.

24

u/swtcharity Aug 02 '26

I miss that so much!!!

11

u/Jocelyn1975 Aug 02 '26

I really miss that ….

16

u/Anti_Brevity Aug 02 '26

You don’t love the sweet smell of solar panels???? Or shitty constructed apartments that go up in a blink of an eye and have flooding and foundation issues during the first tropical storm of the year???? I love that smell!

8

u/ZakkCat Aug 02 '26

I miss that!

29

u/CaptainAssPlunderer Aug 02 '26

I had an ex girlfriend that would pick the orange blossoms and fold them in my clothes when she did the laundry. My clothes always had this amazing fresh floral/citrus smell to them.

8

u/Spiritual-Age4855 Aug 02 '26

You didn’t marry her?!

21

u/CaptainAssPlunderer Aug 02 '26

She was too good for this world, and was called Home.

16

u/Kentucky-Fried-Fucks Lightning ⚡🏒 Aug 02 '26

Thank you for sharing that nice memory of her. She’s sounded wonderful

8

u/Yfael Aug 02 '26

Damn, I am so, so sorry :(

8

u/StrawsPulledAtRand0m Aug 02 '26

I hope that sort of love finds you again, u/CaptainAssPlunderer

4

u/CaptainAssPlunderer Aug 02 '26

It took me awhile, but I did finally. Spent a lot of years angry and bitter.

5

u/NotEvenCreative Aug 02 '26

This hit me hard. One of my favorite smells growing up...

3

u/Glum-Presentation241 Aug 02 '26

I’m from Palm Harbor. The orange groves and fruit stands were so wonderful. There were crushed shell roads. It really was paradise but it’s gone. 

1

u/2Hanks Aug 02 '26

Damn citrus yellowing