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Editorial: Florida's brighter place in the sun

 
Published Dec. 24, 2014

There are now more Floridians in America than New Yorkers. Imagine that.

The U.S. Census Bureau announced this week that finally, after so many years of anticipation, it was done: Florida had moved to third place nationally in population with 19.9 million and the land of Wall Street and the Adirondacks would now reside at fourth. It can't help but feel like a big deal, particularly for adults reared on history books that put the Empire State at the center of so much of the nation's history and fortune, power and privilege.

More people apparently want beaches and sun and, perhaps, no income tax. Maybe it's the economic opportunity naturally found in a state on the move, adding 803 people a day, or the chance to live surrounded by water where escape is never too hard to find. Perhaps it's just the baby boomers growing old and tired of shoveling snow who decided, "Why not?" It's definitely a legacy of 19th century Apalachicola physician John Gorrie who, among others, set the stage for modern air conditioning. That invention, along with mosquito control, probably contributed the most to Florida's 26-fold increase in population since 1910, most of it since 1950.

Of course the Big Apple still dwarfs any city in the Sunshine State. But in time somewhere, some place, might adopt the name the Big Orange — an ode to the aspirations for the future, of being more than just a destination for tourists but also a city extraordinaire that leads the nation.

Perhaps one day those New York Yankees fans will be a small minority at Tampa Bay Rays and Miami Marlins baseball games and history books will write how in the 21st century, the country's population and power shifted south to a peninsula touching the tropics where dreams were big and success was there for the taking.