[Garden guru]

We moved here five years ago and have given The Villages the old college try. We're now getting ready to move out. We miss city amenities: shopping malls (Closest decent malls in Orlando), cultural events (Orlando or Tampa), sporting events (Tampa or Jacksonville), major medical centers (Gainesville, Tampa, Orlando, or Jacksonville), etc. We wish we'd rented for a year before buying; that would have given us enough time to see what living in The Villages on a permanent basis is really like. This place is out in the middle of nowhere, and we sometimes feel like we're living in a third world country. A one week lifestyle visit or a month or two of renting are just not long enough to realize all of the things that are missing. Day-to-day living involves needing more than oldies music at a square or joining a club. If a person is from a more rural area, The Villages might be the cat's meow, but we're from a city, and this place is not for us.