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Living in Boca

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I read something recently that college students tend to live in the same city as their alma mater but I wonder how often that's true, especially with regard to a city with a high cost of living like Boca Raton.

How many of you ended up living in Boca Raton immediately after graduation (that didn't already live here via family)?

Did you find it difficult to find affordable housing?

Do you know a lot of other people who make 40-60k salaries who couldn't find affordable housing in Boca?

If you left, why did you leave?

And if you never wanted to live here, why was that?

I ask because outside our FAU bubble there's this war about creating a New Boca vs retaining an Old Boca - for instance, look at how vertical our downtown is becoming - and part of the New Boca philosophy is making the city affordable to college grads and working people plus giving them good reasons to live here without significantly diminishing the existing quality of life.
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I lived in boca for a year after starting my career and it was an awful decision.
Boca isn't built for the mid and upper 20's range for the simple fact there is not much to do for that age range.
You don't want to go the college bars or the real pricy places.
So that leaves very few options with places like Kapow, Relbel house, Dubliner, and Yard house.
These places are fine but even at these places the customer base doesn't really reflect that age range.
You don't know how many times I have gone to a place like this for happy hour or something and the age range around me was at least 10-15 years older and if there were other groups of mid 20's they 75 percent of the time other people who went to FAU and stayed in the area, so you never met anyone new.

I live in downtown Ft.Laiderdale now and I can always walk down and go to 50 or so cool bars and meet other people in my age range who moved to Ft.Lauderdale from other places in the country.
That's the main is issue with Boca is my age range dosnt move/there unless that have some prior connection to the city. 

Boca can build all the big apartment building they want but until young people with income have places to go they will never be one of those cities.

The best part of me typeing this right now is the fact I'm
In Williamsburg Brooklyn which if you don't know it was kind of a run down area that millennials built and turned into a real trendy area.
Now if you walk around its cool bar and restaurant and cool bar and restaurant.
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owlcountry40 said

I lived in boca for a year after starting my career and it was an awful decision.
Boca isn't built for the mid and upper 20's range for the simple fact there is not much to do for that age range.
You don't want to go the college bars or the real pricy places.
So that leaves very few options with places like Kapow, Relbel house, Dubliner, and Yard house.
These places are fine but even at these places the customer base doesn't really reflect that age range.
You don't know how many times I have gone to a place like this for happy hour or something and the age range around me was at least 10-15 years older and if there were other groups of mid 20's they 75 percent of the time other people who went to FAU and stayed in the area, so you never met anyone new.

I live in downtown Ft.Laiderdale now and I can always walk down and go to 50 or so cool bars and meet other people in my age range who moved to Ft.Lauderdale from other places in the country.
That's the main is issue with Boca is my age range dosnt move/there unless that have some prior connection to the city. 

Boca can build all the big apartment building they want but until young people with income have places to go they will never be one of those cities.

The best part of me typeing this right now is the fact I'm
In Williamsburg Brooklyn which if you don't know it was kind of a run down area that millennials built and turned into a real trendy area.
Now if you walk around its cool bar and restaurant and cool bar and restaurant.

Posted On: Aug 14th 2016, 4:23 PM #357678

I have never seen a millenial build anything.  Now a developer saw an opportunity and it woorked.

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Call me crazy, but graduates staying in the city of their alma mater should be dictated by the quality of jobs in the area based on the degree achieved at that alma mater, and not the number of places to go drinking. Just sayin'.

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I lived in Boca for a few years after graduation and didn't find it any more expensive than anywhere else I would've lived. Granted, I didn't buy a home right after graduating and had that been my plan I would have thought twice about that zip code.

The one thing I tell people when discussing my "FAU experience" is how great it was to go to school in a place where you'd actually want to live after you're finished. My social and professional network was given a great head start because of that fact. 
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Mid 20's make a lot of decisions based of those social lives.
Just like if I had a family I would love boca because of the schools and nice parks.
I said this to a friend the other day.
A few  mid 20's work in Boca and even less live in Boca.
Honestly I don't know many who work and live in Boca who are the mid 20's. 
Most jobs of the ones who do stay are in the service industry.
Even if you were 27 with a job in Boca you could easily chose to live somewhere more fitting for you.

I know a couple people who worked for Office Depot.
Who I boca is hiring large numbers of mid 20's?
My commute to work is about the same either way. What dose Boca offer for someone my age? 
Boca doesn't even offer a ton for the college kids, but when I was an undergrad at least I had hundreds of friends to be there with and when I stayed for a year or so after and I wasn't in the FAU circle I realized how much I needed to move.
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I graduated, took a job in Irving Texas. Travel , fun, "cool bars", then I met my wife and relocated back to Boca for her job. I started my own thing. Thirty years later, Still here. My son graduated in 2012, worked for one year in the Boca corporate world, quit , works for/with me. On weekends I can be found on Atlantic Ave between the ocean and Swinton.
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I have lived in Boca my whole life.  I have seen it go from a sleepy town to what is today, good and bad.  When I was younger and met my wife we moved to Delray (she was born and raised in Boca as well) because it was more fun for us at that age.  Whether I commuted from Boca or Delray to Lauderdale didn't matter.  

 Boca has not been great for Younger people but it is definitely better now than it ever was and is getting better.  When we had kids we moved back to Boca because there is no better place for schools and parks.  Just stay away from "the annoying Boca people" and you reap the benefits that Boca has to offer.

BTW…when I say Boca, I mean East Boca, west Boca is a whole different world.

GO OWLS!
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fauowl said

Call me crazy, but graduates staying in the city of their alma mater should be dictated by the quality of jobs in the area based on the degree achieved at that alma mater, and not the number of places to go drinking. Just sayin'.


Posted On: Aug 14th 2016, 6:14 PM #357691

In this case, I disagree.  You can have a job in Boca; however, there are about 50 cities within driving distance.
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owlmart said

fauowl said

Call me crazy, but graduates staying in the city of their alma mater should be dictated by the quality of jobs in the area based on the degree achieved at that alma mater, and not the number of places to go drinking. Just sayin'.


Posted On: Aug 14th 2016, 6:14 PM #357691

In this case, I disagree.  You can have a job in Boca; however, there are about 50 cities within driving distance.
Posted On: Aug 19th 2016, 5:53 PM #357819

My point was that hopefully intelligent educated people have other criteria about where they want to live besides just drinking establishments. I love a nice libation as much as the next guy but find it odd that it was the first thing discussed about staying in an area.
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