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Self magazine calls the city the second-most unhappy place in America. It's true. The folks in Lakeland aren't smiling. About the article.
By DAVE SCHEIBER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 17, 2002
LAKELAND -- Attention, people of Lakeland, in case you didn't realize it, you are depressed. You are so gloomy that Self magazine, a glossy national publication devoted to women's health, has this alarming news:
Lakeland is the second-most unhappy place in the United States.
For the record, the city shares that distinction with neighboring Winter Haven to the east -- a big poke in the eye for Polk County in general.
It's rough enough when people consider you an interstate drive-through between the Gulf Beaches and Disney World, when your name conjures images of rural phosphate country, when tiny Plant City next door gets more attention for its Strawberry Festival.
But now comes this: a dubious mention in Self's third annual issue rating the healthiest and unhealthiest U.S. towns for women.
Still, it could be worse. Like Avis, Lakeland apparently tries harder, yet fortunately not hard enough to get named No. 1. That spot was earned by Johnstown, Pa., for its unemployment woes. (Not because of lingering effects from the great flood of 1889 or because Self editors thought somebody said Jonestown.)
The other silver lining for Lakelanders: They have lots of company. Ocala rolls in at No. 3 on the most unhappy list -- all in all, a fabulous showing for Florida, considering the list ranks only three spots.
Meanwhile, Miami rates last for sexual health, Fort Pierce-St. Lucie is No. 3 in the thinnest category (averaging 45 minutes of exercise a day), Fort-Myers-Cape Coral is second on the fittest list (lots of golf courses) and Ocala pops up again at No. 1 on the least safe place because of its many traffic fatalities.
Self insists there is a science to the rankings, which, incidentally, list Asheville, N.C., as the happiest city -- presumably because it is sufficiently far away from Lakeland and Ocala.
For starters, the magazine got its handle on depression and hopelessness by combing through "7,000 bits of data on 200 metro areas," and consulting with professionals. No, not the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, but "epidemiologists, physicians and experts in women's health and fitness."
Second, Self stresses that the rankings are not meant to humiliate a city, but make it strive to do better for next year's issue. Kind of like a tyrannical tennis coach chiding a 7-year-old for missing a backhand. Its particular diss of Lakeland: "The low number of psychiatric professionals here isn't helping lift residents' spirits."
"What got them in trouble was high depression and suicide rates," Self associate editor Donna Fennessy says from her New York office. "Residents in Lakeland report feeling depressed an average of 4.1 days a month. Our survey average was 3.4. That's not a ton of difference, but across the board, it's still big enough to single them out. Also, the area has three more suicide deaths per 100,000 residents."
The depression statistics are for women, says Fennessy, but the suicide numbers are not broken down by gender. And all the data, she points out, was obtained from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services.
Armed with these startling revelations, we headed off to Interstate 4 to find out what was making Lakeland feel so low.
Note to Winter Haven: Sorry, the thought of driving any further really bummed us out.
We barrel toward Lakeland on a recent morning, looking for any hints of distress.
There's the Tree Sweet orange juice factory along I-4. Could the constant sweet smell of O.J. be making residents' mood sour? There's a sign for the Lakeland Center. Various pop stars, such as U2, Sheryl Crow and Ricky Martin, have used the venue for a rehearsal site -- only to bypass Lakeland in concert.
Talk about a downer.
We decide to head for Lakeland's historic downtown district, figuring if many people are unhappy in this refurbished section of town, there's definitely a problem. We find a parking garage and go to work. The female attendant has heard of the article. So does she feel depressed?
"I feel great -- and I don't believe there's anything depressing about Lakeland, I didn't believe it when I read it," says the woman, declining to give her name. "We have Orlando on one side and Tampa on the other -- we're in the middle of everything!"
She points us toward Munn Park a few blocks away, and we set off to take the pulse of the city.
The day is beautiful and breezy, and the park -- the entire downtown, for that matter -- is filled with 162 huge cast-iron swans, the civic symbol of Lakeland. Each swan has been painted by a local artist with some colorful pattern or elaborate illustration.
The swans are part of an auction/fundraiser for the children's hands-on museum that borders Munn Park along with an array of eateries and revamped downtown businesses. This is eye-catching stuff. Nothing at all depressing here. In fact, the area surrounding Munn Park has a friendly, Mayberry feel to it -- even a train running right by the park.
A handful of people are sitting on benches, taking a lunch break. Gary Ruhle, a CFO at a local food distributor, is reading the Wall Street Journal, waiting for his wife so they can peruse the swans.
"Hey, I'm happy," says Ruhle, 49. "I'm familiar with the article. All I can say is we have a number of psychiatrists in Lakeland. We have good clinics, and plenty of health professionals. So I take issue with their premise that we don't have adequate medical services to deal with mental or emotional problems."
Ruhle points to the landscaped scenery of the park, the view of the lake, the steady flow of pedestrians on nearby Main Street. "I've lived here almost all my life, and it's a nice community," he says. "I think it's less stressful to live here than it is in a bigger urban area like Tampa or Orlando."
Okay, sure, but what about having to share a ranking with Winter Haven?
"Long ago, I think there was some discussion between Winter Haven and Lakeland, as to which one would get the name Lakeland -- Winter Haven had more lakes technically, but Lakeland got the name somehow," he says.
So is that another reason to be happy? "Absolutely," Ruhle says.
Across the park, two women and their young children are eating lunch.
"You couldn't ask for a better town to live in than Lakeland," says one of the women, Debra Tyler, 33. "Where'd they get their info from, the Centers for Disease Control? Shoot, is anybody ever happy at a disease center? No way!"
The Lakeland Ledger put the question to readers, asking if they agreed that Polk County was one of the unhappiest places in America. The results: the vast majority voted no.
One dissenting voice in the paper's online forum, however, vented: "I can't seem to break all the ties to this Godforsaken hole and get out of here."
We find a few critics as well. Gina Sastre, who works for a lawyer, is sitting by herself on a lunch break. She has heard about the Self article.
"Lakeland, Winter Haven, Davenport -- you know this place needs to be a lot more modernized," says Sastre, 45, who moved to Lakeland from New York City 14 years ago. "They need to get with the times, this whole Polk County. It's really behind the times, especially regarding certain minorities and women. They're trying to come out of the dark ages, but it still needs a lot of improvement."
Across the park, an unemployed concrete finisher from South Carolina, Joseph Mack, 41, is heading for the bus station. He's hoping he has enough money for a ticket to St. Petersburg. Is he happy to be in Lakeland? "Nope -- it's like a city built on top of the country -- it's got its old country ways," he says.
But mostly, the people we meet seem upbeat. At a street corner, Lydia Boffil, 23, is hugging her boyfriend, Joseph Salgado, 22. She recently arrived from New York City, and met Salgado, a bouncer at a Latin music club in town.
"I've been here a month or so, and I've been happy," she says. She talks about having to leave two young children behind in the care of others, and begins to tear up. But being with Salgado has helped her through the sadness.
"There's lots to do here, lots of good clubs for young people," he says.
Outside of Mitchell's, a comfy old-time Lakeland restaurant, Danny Simmons keeps the city's beat with his well-worn Epiphone guitar. He sees himself as a street minister, giving guidance to the down-and-out and entertaining passers-by with his singing and strumming. His music stand holds a book of sacred music, another of Bob Dylan songs.
He listens to a recap of the Self article.
"Well, it's probably the joblessness, the homelessness, but they take care of the homeless here," says Simmons, 56. "Now there's some positive things about Lakeland. I'm a street musician. I'm here at 7 a.m. till late afternoon five days a week. People in this town say, "Good morning. How are you?' It used to be we just had the phosphate mines. But we've come out of the time warp."
Simmons says he's still mourning the loss of his mother, who died from leukemia last year. He lives in a tough section of town, in one of the homes she left him to rent out. "It's hard, but I'm always up."
Across the street, Carmen Roman, 57, sits at her desk at a health services clinic. She's a benefits specialist handling cases that include mental health issues. She scoffs at the article:
"I've been here 27 years, and there are many good medical facilities of all kinds. I think this an ideal city, and they don't have any understanding of us. They say we don't have enough psychiatrists, but I think that's because there is not enough clientele."
Not far away at city hall, Lakeland Mayor Buddy Fletcher is nothing but up about his city, which he has presided over for the past 10 years. He doesn't even want to discuss the Self rating.
He explains that the downtown has undergone a multimillion-dollar restoration in the past decade and the city is in a growth spurt, with its 86,000 population heading toward 100,000.
"It's great here," he says. "We've got great economic development, good employment and a quality of life that's second to none. Our downtown was nailed up here 15 years ago. If you looked down from the old Arcade building, all you would see was asphalt and rooftops. Now you see a streetscape.
"So when a story comes along like this, you ignore it, 'cause it's not true."
We head back out of town, with a revamped image of Lakeland. But a familiar problem arises. We follow the sign to I-4 West. We drive a mile. No entrance ramp. We drive further. Now, we are somehow parallel with I-4, but can't get on it.
We are experiencing Lakeland's Hotel California syndrome. You can check in any time you want, but you can never leave -- without some anxiety.
Finally, in Plant City, we find a way onto the highway and happily head back to St. Petersburg. At least, there's a city nobody has ever dared to knock.