Miami. Tampa. St. Augustine. Key West. Cape Coral? One of these is not like the other. Cape Coral has been referred to for years by locals as “Cape Coma”, and the ‘home of the newly wed and the nearly-dead.’ Most teenagers who have lived here for a long period describe Cape Coral as an uninteresting town in which they desperately want to leave
Cape Coral is the 9th largest city in the state of Florida, even larger than Fort Lauderdale. So why the negative opinion? The answer to that question has a variety of reasons. There is a major lack of things to do, there is no sense of community, and no thought was put into the layout of the city itself.
Urban planning is the design or layout of a city. Months ago, while scrolling through TikTok, I came upon a guy who reviews cities for their civic engineering. He had found Cape Coral and was laughing at the completely random and senseless layout.
Most cities plan their layout to be pedestrian-friendly, with an abundance of walking and biking paths and some sort of central downtown area. They also have places of interest and businesses within walking distance, as well as plenty of parks and open spaces. Cape Coral has none of this.
Businesses and strip malls pop up next to homes and schools. Canals cut off any sort of purposeful flow to neighborhoods. Parks and open spaces are increasingly rare as mindless building keeps happening.
What does Cape Coral seem to build most of? Car washes, storage facilities are on every corner. The complete lack of planning also creates traffic that has become so bad that people don’t even want to leave the house at rush hour. Which leads me to the second reason that Cape Coral is a terrible place to live – a complete lack of things to do.
There used to be at least a “beach” in Cape Coral when the Yacht Club was here. Since Hurricane Ian wiped that out and with no sign of returning, teenagers have no hope of a peaceful beach day.
When people want to shop or see a concert, or do just about anything for fun, they have to go to Fort Myers. We can’t even hold Prom in Cape Coral because of the lack of venues. If you want to have a late dinner, you can’t because everything closes at 9 pm.
The Ranch might be the only option for teenagers craving a fun night out, but let’s be real—it’s far from ideal. You have probably heard of it; it’s essentially a bar that opens its doors to teens on Wednesday nights for a few hours of line dancing. The catch? It isn’t even in Cape Coral, which is already a letdown. If you don’t already know the dances, what’s the point of going? And seriously, what kind of responsible parents allow their 15-year-olds to hang out at a bar on a school night? It feels pretty irresponsible to put kids in that kind of environment.
What is there to do in Cape Coral other than tour a storage facility and get your car washed? Wouldn’t it be nice to watch a sporting event or go to a concert without having to drive to Tampa or Miami? It is this lack of city planning and things to do that helps to decrease any sort of sense of community. What sense of community does Cape Coral have? Some snowbirds live here for a few months of the year, leaving multiple houses vacant in the summertime. Oftentimes, neighborhoods are filled with Airbnbs that have people constantly coming and going.
Because of school choice, kids who live just houses away from each other don’t even know each other because they go to different schools and ride different buses. There are no block parties and few festivals for the people who live here. Because there are no sidewalks, people cannot even go for walks without being in the street. Thus, leading to the conclusion that Cape Coral is a very unpleasant place to live.
