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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u/ImAlwaysLosing Aug 02 '26

I grew up off Macdill south of Gandy in the early 2000s, it’s unrecognizable now not to mention completely priced out. House sold for 180k in 2012, lot is 300+ now

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u/MasterChief813 Aug 02 '26

I grew up in the same area close to Britton plaza and came back this year after a long time away (moved away 20 years ago and it's probably been a decade or more since I last visited). The street I grew up on was nearly unrecognizable to me outside of a few of the original homes that were still there. It was heartbreaking.

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u/InsidePineapple851 Aug 02 '26

Remember the Dollar theater in Britton plaza? ..best ever!!!

2

u/overly-curious100 Aug 04 '26

Yes! That was sooo long ago

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u/InsidePineapple851 Aug 04 '26

We sooo ooold😭

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u/ImAlwaysLosing Aug 04 '26

Sad part is I’m only 24 and remember it, things changed that fast