Heat and humidity will always beat the freezing cold, ice and snow for me. You take your life in your hands to travel in that mess. Heat and humidity does not threaten your life to go to the grocery store. But, that's just me.

After my third time of acquiring an STD here in the Villages I've calmed down and now enjoy more of the other activities the Villages has to offer.

Of course I'm kidding! But there are some things about the Villages that one could perceive as negatives, but for the most part its a great place to live IF you want to be active and involved in sports, games and hobbies. Most residents of TV are here for FUN and are very active in sports, games, hobbies and clubs. I believe relationships take a back seat to all the activities. Most have lots of 'friends' they engage with, but few close relationships. There seems to be little time put into relationships compared to activities. The commonalities are different here also. There's less chance that you have family here or a friend you went to school with. Ties with family are remote as are close friends of many years. The Villages is a usually short term place of residence in the passage of life. I doubt there are many who have been here 20+ years. And most of that is about the Year-Round residents, with even less association for those who are Seasonal residents. Is the Villages your HOME or is it your playground? For most it is not home, but just a place to have FUN. Even many full time residents spend a good deal of time going back HOME to visit with family. TV residents are burdened with high costs for much of what's available along with poor service and workmanship in many cases. Its hard to find someone to paint your house, groom your dog, install a pool, Enclose your Lanai and on and on. Most businesses and contractors in the area have too much business already and don't necessarily need yours. The activities are plentiful, but often times too crowded to enjoy. There are 'unfair' practices that you will have to accept from a community that is run by the Family. They are in full control of virtually everything and as a resident you are at their mercy. Try to get more pickleball courts in your area or remove the unfair tee time advantage of large groups (over 32), or get free access to recreation gyms and exercise equipment as other retirement communities have, and you'll quickly find that it is not going to happen even if you amassed hundreds of followers in agreement. There is no petitioning or voting to change what you may not like.

I feel that its still one of the best places to live in retirement, but you need to be accepting of its downsides. Most don't even notice the downsides or even care because they're just here to have some fun. I'm a full time resident and I like and Enjoy TV, but I do recognize its not Utopia, and I'm OK with that.

Traffic? Did you say traffic? We just drove from south Florida from a cruise. Now THAT'S TRAFFIC. What we have here is not traffic..........at all.

Sorry to inform you that "The Villages" does have a bad reputation going back 20 or more years.
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Seems when doing your homework you were using the wrong books or media.
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Do you read the "Daily (we will print only what we want you to know) Sun"? Never anything negative is published about TV as it's printed to be another sales tool.
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In time you will learn many negatives if happen to talk to people who have lived there for many years.
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If you live South of CR-44 that perhaps was your first mistake as you do not have decent Shopping and many Restaurants. You need to drive north. Too bad the new Morse generation is only concerned about making even more money than they need.
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Presently they are more concerned with building "Charter Schools" (which happens to be good for students) and low-cost housing so people will work in The Villages and can send their children to the Charter Schools. This is not a bad idea for their well-being if you think about this as it's their solution to survive. To line their pockets they need workers to survive building homes in TV and if they ever decide to build shopping and restaurants for your convenience.
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How many "Publix" food stores are open South of CR-44 in The Villages? Just how many people live on the south side? I will now call it the "South Side" from now on in my comments. Believe it or not, Recently I messaged my last Village salesperson for an answer. No reply at all seems this as well also on the do not tell list.
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When we built in "Amelia" in 2009 we were told by the cloned salespeople they would never build South of CR-466A. Then in 2018, we moved to "Pine Hills" and again were told that the Morses have no desire to build South of CR-44. Little did we know they had purchased these properties many years before by using other companies they own.
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Sorry to make your day.

That's what A/C is for. There are so many activities that can be done indoors when the heat and humitidy is oppressive. Personally, I love indoor stuff to do. I also love working outdoors in the yard but do it in the morning in summer months. Up north, there is no good time to work in the yard in winter because everything is frozen. LOL.

Back in Minnesota we embraced all the seasons. Winter was a challenge but we were outside quite a lot doing winter gardening.

In a nutshell!

Agreed, and good points, especially the one about density per square mile. I've only been to Alaska once (went there by accident) but the points made, make sense.

However The Villages isn't about population density. The name says it all. Villages. Our Village is maybe four blocks off El Camino Real, which can be a real traffic bear, but in our Village it is all about peace, quiet, and neighbors interacting. The most traffic noise we ever hear back here is the garbage truck twice a week, and the occasional landscaping crew.

It is that way, living space - wise, all over The Villages. The Villages grow OUT, not UP. Most of us come from cities where stacking the people on top of one another can lead (not necessarily all the time, of course) to housing developments where the negatives predominate. Here, in our Village, the new villages south of 466 might as well be on the moon.

The one exception to the above, is that infrastructure here doesn't seem to keep up with development--though, realistically, it is probably that way in just about every area in America experiencing explosive growth. Example, that road construction zone up near Sam's Club on 441 (and I use the term "construction" very loosely, as there seems to be precious little constructing actually going on there) is a traffic nightmare and has been for years, particularly in high snowbird season, though that is a political, not a social issue. But infrastructure catches up in time. There is no reason to think that it won't here in The Villages, as well.

That is absolutely true. Thanks for sharing. I have lived here 11 years and I very grateful to do so.

People are just jealous. All my family always want to come to The Villages.

Indeed!

Want to know just how much the negativity (media, word-of-mouth), is slowing development in TV? Well, we have some friends up north who want to come down for a week on the Lifestyle program. I recall when we did that, maybe seven years ago now. We called at the end of January and had no problem arranging a place in early March. Now? We called on Thursday last and got our answer.

May! And the person who makes those arrangements for The Villages indicated that "they fill up FAST".

There are and will always be those whose greatest joy in life is casting aspersions. But The Villages isn't the largest retirement community on the planet and growing explosively, because of the negatives.

If I told people I know back home that I live in Wildwood they would think I was living at the Jersey shore! 🤣

Yup! Many, many more die from cold weather than do from hot weather...

I'll take my chances in the heat...

Yawn... Same old, same old...

We used to cruise 3 or 4 times a year during the winter and met many people from TV onboard. In fact, before we actually drove to TV, most of our info was from cruisers and those free golf for life commercials. We should have listened to those people way back then and built a second house in TV instead of Rome WI, but we were young and dumb. We did meet a small amount of people that bailed out of TV and went to OTOW because they felt TV was too busy activity wise.