Florida

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The Real Estate Boom

After World War I the state’s economy continued to develop rapidly. More than 1 million tourists a year visited Florida in the early 1920s, and land speculators rushed to the state, hoping to make their fortunes in real estate. Between 1920 and 1925 the population increased four times faster than that of any other state. Real estate prices soared, especially in the Miami area. Swamps and mudflats were drained, forests were cleared, and roads and railroads were extended to the newly developed areas. The real estate boom reached its peak in 1925 and then collapsed in the spring of 1926. Land values dropped, banks failed, and many personal fortunes were lost. In addition, Florida was struck by disastrous hurricanes in 1926 and again in 1928. Nevertheless, the tourist industry continued to develop and the economy had made a partial recovery by 1929.

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The Depression Years

Income from tourism and other economic activities in Florida dropped sharply during the worldwide Great Depression, the hard times of the 1930s. After a few years, however, Florida’s economy began to improve, partly as a result of federal and state aid programs. During the depression, cooperative farm groups and farm markets were organized. Wood pulp and paper mills were also established.

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World War II and After

During World War II (1939-1945), more than 2 million servicemen and women trained in Florida military bases, while German submarines sank 24 merchant ships in the state’s coastal waters. During and after the war, manufacturing expanded rapidly in Florida, providing more economic diversity and comparative stability. In 1949 the U.S. Air Force Missile Test Center was established at Cape Canaveral and soon became a center for space exploration. The first U.S. earth satellite, Explorer I, was launched from the base in 1958, and the first manned U.S. space capsule, Freedom 7, was launched there in 1961. In 1969 the John F. Kennedy Space Center, also at Cape Canaveral, was the launch site for Apollo 11, the first spaceflight to land humans on the moon.

After World War II, another boom developed in the real estate and construction industries. Spurring the growth were new developments in air conditioning and mosquito control. Beaches, tourist attractions, hotels, motels, restaurants, and improved roads brought in millions of visitors, and many settled permanently in Florida. Between 1930 and 1980 no other state matched Florida’s 564 percent rate of growth. The eighth most populous state in the nation in 1980, Florida rose to fourth largest in the next decade, when 900 new residents moved into the state each day. The spiraling population increase, particularly in the southern counties, placed great strain on urban infrastructures such as power, water, and sewer lines. By 1988 Florida required each day 1.6 km (1 mi) of new highway, two new K-12 classrooms and teachers, two more police officers, three more state prison beds, and 47 gallons (178 liters) more water.

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Immigration to Florida continues to be strong, although not at the same high levels experienced in the 1980s. Much of the immigration has given the state a Latin cast, especially in Miami and Miami-Dade County. Since Fidel Castro’s seizure of Cuba in 1959, more than 800,000 Cubans have come to Florida. In recent years they have been joined by immigrants from El Salvador, Colombia, Venezuela, and other Latin American countries. One striking result is that Miami has become a major center for Latin American banking, trade, and culture. In Miami-Dade County, 53.3 percent of the residents speak a language other than English at home.

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Political Changes

Major political changes occurred in Florida after 1950. Many northern immigrants, unlike the older natives, were not Democrats by tradition. A small Republican Party had existed in Florida since the 1920s. As the national Democratic Party embraced issues such as civil rights that were unpopular in Florida, Floridians increasingly turned to the Republican Party.

When the state legislature was reapportioned in 1968 to give equal representation to the new population of southern Florida, it was widely expected that it would become more progressive and spend more for social programs. Instead, the state remained conservative. Many of the new residents were retired people or small businessmen and women who, it turned out, opposed the higher taxes required for progressive government programs.

Although both state parties are conservative, the Republicans have often had the advantage because of the national Democratic Party’s liberal image. After 1952 the state regularly voted for the Republican candidates in presidential elections except for the 1964 and 1976 elections. Both Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates have been elected since the 1960s, but in 1994 Florida’s state senate acquired a Republican majority for the first time since Reconstruction. Democratic Governor Lawton Chiles kept his seat in that election by the narrow margin of 51 percent of the vote versus his Republican opponent’s 49 percent. In 1998, however, Republican Jeb Bush was elected governor. He was reelected in 2002.

When the Supreme Court of the United States ordered desegregation of schools in its Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954, many Floridians approved of Governor Leroy Collins’s policy of peaceful—if reluctant—acceptance. However, racial tension continued in certain areas, aggravated by the massive influx of refugees from Communist Cuba and the economic troubles of the late 1970s. Angered by their continuing poverty and what they perceived as unfair treatment by the police, blacks rioted in 1980 in the Liberty City section of Miami; the rioting resulted in 18 deaths, both white and black, and more than $100 million in property damage.

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The Environment

In the 1980s and 1990s Floridians had to contend with environmental damage. Florida has 58 hazardous waste sites on the national priority list of the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Water quality has suffered greatly from unrestricted population growth. Overdevelopment and urban sprawl have consumed or polluted water resources throughout the state, and currently they threaten the purity of the aquifer that supplies drinking water for 5 million people in south Florida.

A vocal lay environmental movement has achieved notable successes, including the passage of legislation to control encroachment on the fragile ecosystems that keep the peninsula—one of the world’s few green landmasses at this latitude—from becoming a desert. Large federal and state programs are attempting to reverse damage to the Everglades, the vast sheet of fresh water that has nourished the entire southern tip but is now poisoned by chemical runoff.

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Entering the 21st Century

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