Native Floridian. I spent my youth shoeless around these ponds, catching and releasing gators, snakes, and fish. I find those experiences growing up invaluable.

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

Inland coastal Alabama, same deal. It's great to know how to catch turtles, snakes and lizards with my bare hands. Doesn't come up much while developing software but it definitely balanced out the Super Nintendo time growing up.

Australian here. Catching a snake here has you limping home as fast as possible to get to the hospital before rigor mortis sets in.

I’ve done other things that almost got me killed but nothing gives me the heebeejeebees like thinking about the time I drunkenly peed into a river delta near daintree. I don’t even want to think about what was waiting for me to step closer to the water...

Native Floridian here as well. Same, but I would never swim down into a submerged car to investigate it. They're usually far too disgusting and too deep down. There was a submerged car in a canal where I grew up, I used to use it as a landmark for fishing all the time. It's probably still there, who knows, there could be a body.

The first time I heard of "Florida Man", I thought that shit was made up. Now I'm incredibly fascinated (and perhaps a bit scared) by it.

The "Florida Man" phenomenon is likely due more to reporting laws in Florida than it is to the culture in Florida:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_information_legisla...

https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/how-floridas-proud-open-g...

Is that why fark has a Florida tag?

As someone who used to be a Floridian, tales of gators in ponds are greatly exaggerated :) The vast majority of ponds, especially community ponds, do not have gators.

Snakes? Another story.

> The vast majority of ponds, especially community ponds, do not have gators.

The need for this qualification on your statement really isn't helping. /s

Yea, local sterotypes tend to be that way, Boston is actually a really nice city with (mostly, except the crazy insulated catholics) pleasant people.

I don't know anything about Florida. Why would developers choose to build suburbs with ponds in areas like that?

1) dig pond for drainage, retention, and fill dirt

2) use fill dirt to raise land for houses so they are above flood levels

3) sell houses with "waterfront views"

On 3, this leads to this "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotonda_West,_Florida" hilarious suburban development, complete with inaccessible canals

Corrected link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotonda_West,_Florida

Empty page

That place is beautiful.

They are retention ponds, it’s necessary to create areas where water can drain into.

A large part of Florida is the combination of coastal and at sea level.

People want to live there, so they actively and continuously drain the swamp and build wherever possible.

Sea level rise is posing some expensive problems for them, obviously.

They dig the pond and use the dirt as fill to build houses on at a higher level than sea level.

Florida has unusual issues. The groundwater isn't very far below the surface and you basically can't have basements there. Some parts of it are swamp and it has a lot of karst that is prone to sink holes.

(Off the top of my head -- so anyone more knowledge, feel free to nitpick that to death. Alternately, anyone desperate to pick a fight and not knowledgeable enough, feel free to google my remark to within an inch of its life.)

imagine the smell and mosquitoes

Don't worry, the heat and humidity will distract you from both.

Most ponds don't smell.

Does the water drain, evaporate, or just stagnate?