Oh, good lord, I lived in the Cape for 5 years and it's a dump. Look, anywhere you live on water can be nice, freshwater or saltwater (and all those places in the Cape are on a river, not the ocean), but the entire city of Cape Coral is the pits. Horrible master planning FROM THE BEGINNING (and you KNOW this) means that nearly everything commercial is on 3 streets, Pine Island, Del Prado, and CC Parkway. Only 2 bridges in or out, both tolled (and, no, I'm not counting driving through NFM).
When I lived there, every idiot in town pulled all the equity out of their houses during the housing boom, not to mention sinking their money into spec houses in the western part of the Cape, which is why that whole area was ground-central for foreclosures (Lee County, home of the Rocket Docket). There's no industry, no corporate headquarters, no real jobs down there. And at the time, the mayor of Cape Coral was a UM alum that I went to school with, so I used to play golf with him and his wife. The Cape was offering a bounty to anyone who could assemble a large number of residential real estate parcels along Pine Island so that they could rezone it and try to build a mall. That's what happens when the ENTIRE city (and it is a massive piece of land, 5th largest city by area in Florida) is zoned residential, due to idiotic politicians decades ago.
But, hey, you're retiring. Naples is beautiful, but the rest of the area isn't that great for non-retirees. And don't think that I don't know what it's like today, my best friend from UM undergrad/UM law lives down there (used to have a house in the upper right corner of your photo, 6 houses away from the Caloosahatchee, now he lives in Fort Myers). I would have already convinced him to move to Orlando if he and his wife weren't already partners in a law firm down there.
I get it, you live near downtown Orlando and there is a lot of growth. Retire to Collier County, everybody does it. When I lived down in SW FL, it was nearly impossible to get a doctor, because so many of them specialized in elder care.
All the best to you and yours. You're from that area, and I'm sure that going home again will be great for you.
.
