Having lived in Polk County for 20 some years before leaving in 2006 I had extensively traveled around the county. Polk County is huge. Huge. And once you get out of the western side, Lakeland, Winter Haven, Plant City, and the portions that border Hillsborough county (Tampa Bay area) it’s a huge expansive, empty area. Which is why it has been a really bad thing for meth and other drugs. It’s simply too much land for the county law enforcement to stay on top of.
By way of illustration Polk County is double the size of Rhode Island and equal to the size of Delaware. And this is simply a County with four or five cities of any consequence at all.
I lived in Winter Haven in the late 60’s for a few years. My deceased brother’s family is still in the area, Winter Haven, Lakeland, Haines City, and Lake Worth. (Family in Pinellas, Hillsborough, and Alachua counties also). Yes, Polk is a big county, and in some parts, as you said, an expansive empty area. My brother’s family has encountered the drug problem firsthand. Theft and other crazy things. I know you have to be careful anywhere you go these days, though. Drugs have infested our country as a whole.