Soy,
Limon is both a city and a province. The province has beautiful landscape but the city is awful. However, I would not recommend living in Limon overall, it is not safe.
I would stay away from the following towns, Limon proper, Guapiles, Cariari, and Matina. Generally, this towns are not a safe place to live. If somebody wants to live in the Caribbean coast I would recommend Puerto Viejo, Cocles, Manzanillo, Cahuita, as they are a little safer.
The city of Limón used to be a beautiful city even back in the 80s. When I was a child, my family used to spend the summer vacations in Moin in a beach front creole townhouse type of property. Down town Limon looked to me like New Orleans. The architecture on the one hand, and the people on the other hand, gave Limón a unique atmosphere, which made it delightful to visit the town with the great music, food, art and friends.
Unfortunately, after the earthquake of 1991, the city was devastated with a lot of damage to the buildings and public infrastructure. The event sent the city back a few years and the apathetic policies of the central government has made the province a very poor place with very high unemployment rate and very few opportunities for people to grow which coupled with pathetic law enforcement has driven the area to crime.
Today, I am an attorney and my job is to protect my clients and their investments. I have had several clients interested in buying property in the Southern Caribbean (Puerto Viejo, Cocles, Cahuita) and they always wind up looking into other areas. The main issues that we have found in the Southern Caribbean is crime, corruption and fraud. There has not been a single property that we have looked into that did not have a problem. I cannot suggest my clients to buy into problems.
Although, I am a risk taker, Limón is not an area where I put my chips in, nor could I suggest other people to do so. It is unfortunate, because as I said, the area is gorgeous and a great deal of people are awesome, but the bad apples are really affecting the basket overall. My family still has property, but in the Southern Caribbean, and every now and then we spend a weekend there, but they are looking forward to sell.
Hopefully, things will change for the good soon, but I cannot suggest people to sit around and wait in ticking bomb.
I hope this answers your questions.
Regards,