Moving to Tampa Bay

Tampa Bay pairs a real metro economy with Gulf beaches — Tampa's urban core and job market on one side of the bay, St. Petersburg and the Pinellas beach towns on the other, and fast-growing suburbs north and east in Pasco and Polk. It tends to offer better value and more year-round, non-retiree energy than the southwest coast, with the same Florida tradeoffs of hurricane exposure and insurance to weigh by location.