If you really want to see high end areas take a drive down to Naples. Better yet, go out on one of the tour boats to see Port Royal. It will make you feel poor.
You are right that there’s a big difference between Fort Myers proper and the surrounding county. We generally don’t venture north of Colonial too much. Its not really a safe area.
I guess its all relative but I don’t view the fort Myers area as being high end. Don’t get me wrong — its very nice and in fact one of the great things about it is that its NOT high end. The Fort Myers area is a comfortably pleasant place to live. We have friends there who can live anywhere they want but they prefer the laid back and unpretentious lifestyle of the area.
By the way several areas east of 75 are being rapidly built up. The area south of the RSW is exploding.
Yes, are they going to clean up blight N of Colonial? On the other hand Detroit has a ton of vacant property.
I have friends out in Lehigh Acres. That area looks nothing like it did just 5 years ago. Immokalee is getting there too. I’ve seen it happen even up here in my rural part of Hernando county, and it’s getting worse every year, hell every month. There are parts of Brooksville that are “no go” for even the hardiest rednecks, and I grew up around there when it was nothing but cattle land.
Ft. Myers is a lot like Clearwater in Pinellas. It was a quiet bedroom community that has exploded into a tourist trap. The only parts of the Ft. Myers area that I would consider obscenely high class are the north parts of Sanibel and Captiva.
If you want more obscenity like that, I’d say Venice is the nearest mainland area.