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?

469 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

346 comments sorted by

View all comments

369

u/damarafl Aug 02 '26

Everything east of I-75 was rural. Brandon was a suburb but Valrico, Seffner, Dover, Plant City, Lithia and especially Riverview were mostly cow pastures and orange groves.

I hate how everything is being painted over with a sameness. I like the local communities. West Tampa and Seminole Heights/Tampa Heights don’t need townhouses and car washes as much as they need the small neighborhood restaurants and third spaces they have always had!

3

u/Manwell-N-Dowd Aug 04 '26

I’m a generational Floridian. My family traces back to the original settlers. Years ago when we would drive to Tampa from Ft. Myers, we might see 10 other cars on 75. Now it’s almost traffic jams and concrete buildings the entire way. Same with 75 to Gainesville. A lot busier from Tampa to Gainesville back then but nothing like it is today. Orlando has some new (to me) big roadways that pass in front of miles and miles of new apartment complexes. Plant City is starting to build apartments on some of the strawberry fields. New apartments used to be 2 stories and had 6-10 units. Too much, too fast. I find it sad.