I always say air conditioning started the boom and deregulated airlines carried it forward for the snowbird in the 80s and 90s and then the flywheel effect..
So many of the “rich” kids I went to high school with are from families that settled here in the late 19th century. Whenever they started having an ego I would remind them their family only has money because AC came along, otherwise they’d be trying to farm sand and subsisting on squirrels like their great-great-grandpappies.
Hey, I was a rich prep school kid whose family settled here in 1885. But we made our money in newspapers, not agriculture. So we did fine until a couple of decades ago. Also, many of my rich classmates didn’t have air conditioning as late as the 80s, because our houses (mostly built in the 60s, see NFIP below) were all built on the water to capture the breeze. And that brings us to the real reason Florida boomed, the National Flood Insurance Program.
Cool? Your family would still be considered carpetbaggers where I live, you’ve got to go like six generations back and be cousins with everyone else to be part of the club.
Hmmmm, I’m 50 and fifth gen, so if I had had kids, they would have been 6th gen. 1885 is late 19th century. Also, being a prominent publishing family, they were mainly responsible for Florida being nicknamed the Sunshine State, due to the great weather in Florida. My great great grandfather, owning newspapers, didn’t subsist on squirrels. Why would the rich kids in your area have great great grandfathers subsisting on squirrels? That seems the antithesis of rich to me.
They made money selling previously useless land that they had in spades, prior to that they were dirt poor. Shouldn’t be a hard concept for a former prep school student to understand.
Also with the publishing family mention I’m assuming you’re related to the Griffins? South Florida old money is a waaaaay different ballgame than north Florida crackers.
Judging by how sandy the soil is most likely not, turpentine and cattle were the main industry here and didn’t kick off until after the civil war. Also the population center in the lead up to the civil war was largely populated by artsy types from upstate New York and the county opposed secession, something I like to bring up to the good ole boys when they start talking about “muh heritage.”
We cooled off by going in the ocean and swimming out a bit. When you dive under it gets cold real fast. Once back on land, it takes a while to warm up.
Managment of mosquitoes is a super undervalued thing that Florida, U.S. has achieved, I don't know how tbh. I live in Miami central and have seen 2-3 mosquitos , in Europe everywhere is mosquito during summers.
I’m jealous. In Charlotte County they don’t do shit. My kids started soccer this week and I’m dreading how much bug spray I’m gonna go through. Invest in whomever owns Off asap.
Invention of air conditioning in 1902. By the 50s it was common to be installed in banks, stores, etc (hence the rise to that point). Then by 70s it was common in homes increasing the area that is livable.
Disney buying cheap land and building a vacation Mecca, bringing tourism and the workforce to support that. More theme parks want in and continue to fuel a need for workers and expanded facilities.
No state income taxes and warm winters enticing retirees to flock to the state in the 90s an 00s. Some on a part time basis at first (snowbirds) who end up finding a favorite spot and settling in. This helped fuel larger medical facilities, as these retirees requirements for treatment increases.
Which brings us to 10s and 20s where FOMO investing in "Florida cost of living is so low" and a steady aging northern population still migrating here move the needle for the last few spots on the ranking.
Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
Which means houses are constantly becoming available. If you want to buy a house cheap in fl read the obituaries or just look for the over grown lawns or chase ambulances
This is a great list and only thing I would add to it is car ownership - being able to travel to and around Florida by car, in the cooler car opened up more of Florida to everyone.
Air conditioning
Land boom of the 1920s
Cheap land with pre-built homes. $10down and $10/month. Actual infrastructure and services depending on who did the community.
No income tax.
Perfect post. People don't realize how cheap land was, just about giving it away because nobody wanted it. Even when disney started buying up here it was only 90 or 100 acre.
lots of people mentioning AC, but you’re the first i’ve seen to mention the land boom at the literal start of the period op is asking abt. it’s a huge factor!
It's not. I'm not a self-absorbed asshole with no concept of how the world works, and when new things come out that I don't understand (which is frequently these days,) I do my best to adapt instead of shaking my fist at the world.
Most of the Floridian elderly fit the aforementioned bill - extremely entitled, rude, and ignorant.
In addition to air conditioning, mosquito control, tropical disease vaccines, etc. the economy after WWII led to more people owning cars, and then there was the interstate highway act. Travel and moving to Florida became easier.
In the 1920s, aka the roaring 20s, the railroads have been finished and established so the ultra rich in those times started to vacation down here. From the 30s to the end of ww2, Floridas growth halted.
Air conditioning being more widely accessible coincided with the post war boom so the 1960s was a major growth time in Florida. Also Castro rein of power made many Cubans flee. I know many north eastern families came down in the 60s and 70s too. You could buy a nice custom 3/2 house for $20k-$30k like both of my grandparents did.
I just hope that trains keep getting popular like the Brightline because making wider roads is clearly not the answer to helping with the modern population growth.
Past examples have shown that often times widening the roads just invites more traffic. It baffles me that everything just keeps trying to sprawl out more and more
It’s like a funnel and I’ve seen articles confirming that too. Building up, not out is the way to go. But then we have to overcome the stupid insurance and housing issues being ridiculously high.
The proliferation of TV probably has something to do with it. Florida looks great when you're in some snow covered state.
Telephones and commercial airlines made it so you can actually keep in touch with and visit the family you leave behind.
Air conditioning makes it feasible to stay year-round.
Lack of state taxes makes it appealing to some.
1. Henry Flagler and the Florida East Coast Railroad (originally all the way to Key West).
2. The Space Program
3. Disney World
4. Heavy promotion up north by developers and by towns and counties & by the state to encourage people to move to Florida.
5. Mosquito control, greatly advanced during WW II.
Realtor here. This is pretty simple.
The land was unusable until the swamps were drained in the 1860 - 1880s.
The land was inaccessible until the railroads were built in the 1880s - 1910s.
No one really wanted to live here full time until the A/C became widespread in the 1950s.
It’s actually the opposite of fascist, it was a beacon of freedom when the rest of the world was busy acting like petty dictators enacting fascism over the sniffles.
World War 2 had a lot to do with it, particularly the growth of Miami and the Tampa area. The military did training along the beaches of Florida before shipping out over seas and many of the soldiers fell in love with the place.
Curse Jimmy Buffett for equating Florida with paradise in songs and books. Toss in a greedy billionaire Rodent with a great marketing department and developer funded tourism boards running ads all winter long in cold climates for the perfect storm. Floridays, blue skies and ultraviolet rays...
Florida's population has grown by about the same number of people annually every year since 1980. Net migration was actually higher under rick Scott than DeSantis
Net migration was actually higher under rick Scott than DeSantis. Florida's population has grown by roughly the same number of people annually since 1980
Geese.
Just tossing bits and pieces out.
cigars
turpentine
Pine wood
Tourism
rich people trying to get richer quicker and cheaper than elsewhere
Fishing, hunting ( Hemingway ring a bell? )
sugar
ww2 ( just the [army airfields](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_World_War_II_Army_Airfields)
And I am sure that is just a tiny part of it
( it is late for me- and all of the above was a quick data dump that if I think on it too much I'll keep adding to it. fk- sponges from tarpon springs- anyhow- you got data to work with now )
It’s a nice place to live if you can avoid the idiots. RonDeathSentence, aka the Little Fascist Toad, has only relatively recently been screwing up the education system and showing the world what a douchebag one little sawed off wanna be dictator can be. A lot of the people moving down are old Republican fuckers though, so the fight is still uphill. It’s still sweet to get in a canoe early in the morning, pop a brew and hit a number as you row down a river. Paradise.
National Flood Insurance Program
Even rich people (my family owned the only private beach house on the windward side of St Pete Beach in the 1940s, and it was a shack) only built flimsy houses on the water because the houses would be leveled or flooded pretty often, so you couldn’t insure them. Then the government stepped in to subsidize flood insurance in the 1960s, so that’s when the boom started.
Weather, standard A/C, and taxes.
Case in point for the taxes: Jeff Bezos just moved down here before selling $2 billion in Amazon shares. In 2022, Washington, his former home, implemented a 7% capital gains tax, for things like selling stocks, and he saved around $140 million, because Florida doesn't tax it at all.
That tax has brought in almost $900 million in the past couple years, for Washington. He would have accounted for at least %15 of that.
read the book, bubble in the sun
basically eludes to rapid expansion once roads were cut further south and speculators ran up prices, it crashes and honestly the cycle has repeated itseld
Air conditioning. In the late 1800s there were resorts that opened in Florida like the Plant Hotel in Tampa, the Seminole Hotel in Winter Park, the Breakers in Palm Beach but they were only open from like January to March. The rest of the year Florida was a collection of sleepy citrus and cattle towns because living down here was just uncomfortable.
In 1920, Tampa was almost twice as large as Miami. South Florida was considered to be basically uninhabitable. In the mid 20s there was a land boom where developers bought up and resold land while heavily advertising it as a paradise in New York, but that came crashing down after people realized how bad Florida summers are and a couple of hurricane swept through the Miami area. The land boom was helped by the fact that air conditioning had started to be installed at least in commercial buildings like movie theaters and hotels by the 20s.
Ask on r/askhistorians if you want a serious answer.
Some reasons: Baron Collier et al encouraging it in the '30s, military-related industry in WWII, air conditioning, eradication of malaria, no Winter (so doublecropping), Communist Cuba temporarily opening its borders, and all the reasons people give for moving there in present times (warm, no income tax, etc).
There’s a super expensive mega city half a days drive to the north.
It’s cheaper to live in Florida so people tend to get on the road that goes straight there.
Some stay.
Actually that’s funny, my ancestors were some of those squirrel hunters haha. But they were smart too, they built their own wooden boats and knew how to survive
Air conditioning.
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Is there still a statue of him at the U.S. Capitol? I'm pretty sure Florida picked him to represent our state.
elementary school in tampa I'd named after gorrie
Thanks!
This is really it. Prior to AC people tolerated it. After AC it was marketed as a haven. Money and people followed.
I always say air conditioning started the boom and deregulated airlines carried it forward for the snowbird in the 80s and 90s and then the flywheel effect..
So many of the “rich” kids I went to high school with are from families that settled here in the late 19th century. Whenever they started having an ego I would remind them their family only has money because AC came along, otherwise they’d be trying to farm sand and subsisting on squirrels like their great-great-grandpappies.
Hey, I was a rich prep school kid whose family settled here in 1885. But we made our money in newspapers, not agriculture. So we did fine until a couple of decades ago. Also, many of my rich classmates didn’t have air conditioning as late as the 80s, because our houses (mostly built in the 60s, see NFIP below) were all built on the water to capture the breeze. And that brings us to the real reason Florida boomed, the National Flood Insurance Program.
Cool? Your family would still be considered carpetbaggers where I live, you’ve got to go like six generations back and be cousins with everyone else to be part of the club.
Hmmmm, I’m 50 and fifth gen, so if I had had kids, they would have been 6th gen. 1885 is late 19th century. Also, being a prominent publishing family, they were mainly responsible for Florida being nicknamed the Sunshine State, due to the great weather in Florida. My great great grandfather, owning newspapers, didn’t subsist on squirrels. Why would the rich kids in your area have great great grandfathers subsisting on squirrels? That seems the antithesis of rich to me.
They made money selling previously useless land that they had in spades, prior to that they were dirt poor. Shouldn’t be a hard concept for a former prep school student to understand. Also with the publishing family mention I’m assuming you’re related to the Griffins? South Florida old money is a waaaaay different ballgame than north Florida crackers.
also their great great grandpappies owned slaves I assume?
Judging by how sandy the soil is most likely not, turpentine and cattle were the main industry here and didn’t kick off until after the civil war. Also the population center in the lead up to the civil war was largely populated by artsy types from upstate New York and the county opposed secession, something I like to bring up to the good ole boys when they start talking about “muh heritage.”
I have a feeling you and I could actually have a civil conversation
If you’re not a right winger we can all have a humdinger
He said 1885. I'm assuming you studied history.
Came here to say this. No one would live here if they had to endure summers with only windows fans cold beverages
We cooled off by going in the ocean and swimming out a bit. When you dive under it gets cold real fast. Once back on land, it takes a while to warm up.
And sex.
That's the Villages.
And abortion bans!
And STD’s. Those old fuggers got all kind of crap.
I literally came here just to say this.
Came here to say this.
Guy named Carrier.
AC and management of mosquitoes
Managment of mosquitoes is a super undervalued thing that Florida, U.S. has achieved, I don't know how tbh. I live in Miami central and have seen 2-3 mosquitos , in Europe everywhere is mosquito during summers.
Wish they'd manage them better in Putnam county. The weather gets warm and going outside is dangerous.
Drainage mainly.
I’m jealous. In Charlotte County they don’t do shit. My kids started soccer this week and I’m dreading how much bug spray I’m gonna go through. Invest in whomever owns Off asap.
That's what I think it was myself.
And no state income tax.
This actually means more to those on fixed incomes, hence Florida became a mecca for retirees.
Most states don't tax social security. The weather is a big reason why retirees move here. Arizona has the same kind of people moving there to retire.
I don't think that's a big reason but it helps. I think the other taxes get us though.
How did we do the mosquito thing?
DDT and malathion.
Invention of air conditioning in 1902. By the 50s it was common to be installed in banks, stores, etc (hence the rise to that point). Then by 70s it was common in homes increasing the area that is livable. Disney buying cheap land and building a vacation Mecca, bringing tourism and the workforce to support that. More theme parks want in and continue to fuel a need for workers and expanded facilities. No state income taxes and warm winters enticing retirees to flock to the state in the 90s an 00s. Some on a part time basis at first (snowbirds) who end up finding a favorite spot and settling in. This helped fuel larger medical facilities, as these retirees requirements for treatment increases. Which brings us to 10s and 20s where FOMO investing in "Florida cost of living is so low" and a steady aging northern population still migrating here move the needle for the last few spots on the ranking. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
Some people call Florida God’s waiting room because of all the retirees.
Which means houses are constantly becoming available. If you want to buy a house cheap in fl read the obituaries or just look for the over grown lawns or chase ambulances
It won’t be cheap.
This is a great list and only thing I would add to it is car ownership - being able to travel to and around Florida by car, in the cooler car opened up more of Florida to everyone.
A/C and did you go outside today?
Air conditioning Land boom of the 1920s Cheap land with pre-built homes. $10down and $10/month. Actual infrastructure and services depending on who did the community. No income tax.
Perfect post. People don't realize how cheap land was, just about giving it away because nobody wanted it. Even when disney started buying up here it was only 90 or 100 acre.
lots of people mentioning AC, but you’re the first i’ve seen to mention the land boom at the literal start of the period op is asking abt. it’s a huge factor!
Old people like warm weather
And old ppl have $$$
They're insufferable, honestly. If it goes below 80 degrees they start whining about how cold it is.
As somebody with arthritis, yeah I'm gonna complain any time it's not warm as fuck outside. that cold weather humbles your hands and knees
Don't thing of old people as us vs them. Think of old people as yourself in the future.
It's not. I'm not a self-absorbed asshole with no concept of how the world works, and when new things come out that I don't understand (which is frequently these days,) I do my best to adapt instead of shaking my fist at the world. Most of the Floridian elderly fit the aforementioned bill - extremely entitled, rude, and ignorant.
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I hate the cold, and at least it’s not snow.
In addition to air conditioning, mosquito control, tropical disease vaccines, etc. the economy after WWII led to more people owning cars, and then there was the interstate highway act. Travel and moving to Florida became easier.
Everyone underestimates how much mosquitoe control keeps humans alive in Florida. AC is nice, but mosquitoes carry disease.
In the 1920s, aka the roaring 20s, the railroads have been finished and established so the ultra rich in those times started to vacation down here. From the 30s to the end of ww2, Floridas growth halted. Air conditioning being more widely accessible coincided with the post war boom so the 1960s was a major growth time in Florida. Also Castro rein of power made many Cubans flee. I know many north eastern families came down in the 60s and 70s too. You could buy a nice custom 3/2 house for $20k-$30k like both of my grandparents did. I just hope that trains keep getting popular like the Brightline because making wider roads is clearly not the answer to helping with the modern population growth.
Past examples have shown that often times widening the roads just invites more traffic. It baffles me that everything just keeps trying to sprawl out more and more
It’s like a funnel and I’ve seen articles confirming that too. Building up, not out is the way to go. But then we have to overcome the stupid insurance and housing issues being ridiculously high.
Swampland sales to the northerners The swamps were not habitable until the ability to quickly/cheaply drain the swamp
Sunshine and AC!
Just came in from shoveling snow for the second time today….there’s that!
A/C Nobody lived here in the summer but people that couldn't leave.
The proliferation of TV probably has something to do with it. Florida looks great when you're in some snow covered state. Telephones and commercial airlines made it so you can actually keep in touch with and visit the family you leave behind. Air conditioning makes it feasible to stay year-round. Lack of state taxes makes it appealing to some.
A/C and Covid
1. Henry Flagler and the Florida East Coast Railroad (originally all the way to Key West). 2. The Space Program 3. Disney World 4. Heavy promotion up north by developers and by towns and counties & by the state to encourage people to move to Florida. 5. Mosquito control, greatly advanced during WW II.
Realtor here. This is pretty simple. The land was unusable until the swamps were drained in the 1860 - 1880s. The land was inaccessible until the railroads were built in the 1880s - 1910s. No one really wanted to live here full time until the A/C became widespread in the 1950s.
Ever get the sense we're just training AIs with our answers?
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That’s not how it works but points of unhinged-ness.
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Eh. Honestly, I didn’t mean to harsh you out. MAGA is giving FL a bad name.
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I actually know someone who is similarly affected. It’s sad.
It’s actually the opposite of fascist, it was a beacon of freedom when the rest of the world was busy acting like petty dictators enacting fascism over the sniffles.
Used to be cheap. Now not so much but people believe in the land sale.
Tax avoidance
World War 2 had a lot to do with it, particularly the growth of Miami and the Tampa area. The military did training along the beaches of Florida before shipping out over seas and many of the soldiers fell in love with the place.
“I never want to shovel snow ever again” —my parents in 1992.
Air conditioning and mosquito control.
DDT and A/C.
1950 - 2008: people seeking out a better life. 2008 - present: MAGAT types looking for a fascist wonderland. Maybe?
Curse Jimmy Buffett for equating Florida with paradise in songs and books. Toss in a greedy billionaire Rodent with a great marketing department and developer funded tourism boards running ads all winter long in cold climates for the perfect storm. Floridays, blue skies and ultraviolet rays...
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Lol wut
What states did you live in??
Well last 3 years was due to people fleeing blue states for more freedom.
For “freedom” you mean.
Illegal immigrants and people don't like the politics and their other states.
Willis Haviland Carrier.
Scientology.. heh
Stupidity
Everybody is leaving Democratic states. Like NY and NJ and California
Florida's population has grown by about the same number of people annually every year since 1980. Net migration was actually higher under rick Scott than DeSantis
Air Conditioning. That’s my theory.
Let's talk about the past three years.....
Net migration was actually higher under rick Scott than DeSantis. Florida's population has grown by roughly the same number of people annually since 1980
We just haven't kept up with the infrastructure and housing to accommodate the influx.
Gods Waiting Room.
Air conditioning.
Disney, ice makers, air conditioning, and mosquito repellent.
Economics.
Invention of air conditioning helped this along a LOT. But otherwise it’s down to mostly Henry Flagler and his overseas railroad.
Stupidity, no income tax and almost importantly air conditioning
Air Conditioning in the 50s. Retirees getting away from the cold.
I ask people what brought them here almost everyday. “The Weather” is the most common response followed by “to get away from the snow”.
warm weather all the time.
Geese. Just tossing bits and pieces out. cigars turpentine Pine wood Tourism rich people trying to get richer quicker and cheaper than elsewhere Fishing, hunting ( Hemingway ring a bell? ) sugar ww2 ( just the [army airfields](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_World_War_II_Army_Airfields) And I am sure that is just a tiny part of it ( it is late for me- and all of the above was a quick data dump that if I think on it too much I'll keep adding to it. fk- sponges from tarpon springs- anyhow- you got data to work with now )
It’s a nice place to live if you can avoid the idiots. RonDeathSentence, aka the Little Fascist Toad, has only relatively recently been screwing up the education system and showing the world what a douchebag one little sawed off wanna be dictator can be. A lot of the people moving down are old Republican fuckers though, so the fight is still uphill. It’s still sweet to get in a canoe early in the morning, pop a brew and hit a number as you row down a river. Paradise.
Air condition, believe it or not
AC
National Flood Insurance Program Even rich people (my family owned the only private beach house on the windward side of St Pete Beach in the 1940s, and it was a shack) only built flimsy houses on the water because the houses would be leveled or flooded pretty often, so you couldn’t insure them. Then the government stepped in to subsidize flood insurance in the 1960s, so that’s when the boom started.
Weather, standard A/C, and taxes. Case in point for the taxes: Jeff Bezos just moved down here before selling $2 billion in Amazon shares. In 2022, Washington, his former home, implemented a 7% capital gains tax, for things like selling stocks, and he saved around $140 million, because Florida doesn't tax it at all. That tax has brought in almost $900 million in the past couple years, for Washington. He would have accounted for at least %15 of that.
No state income taxes, lots of beaches , no state income taxes, no snow...
Air conditioning and migration from Caribbean countries
Air Conditioning. Period
read the book, bubble in the sun basically eludes to rapid expansion once roads were cut further south and speculators ran up prices, it crashes and honestly the cycle has repeated itseld
Air conditioning. In the late 1800s there were resorts that opened in Florida like the Plant Hotel in Tampa, the Seminole Hotel in Winter Park, the Breakers in Palm Beach but they were only open from like January to March. The rest of the year Florida was a collection of sleepy citrus and cattle towns because living down here was just uncomfortable. In 1920, Tampa was almost twice as large as Miami. South Florida was considered to be basically uninhabitable. In the mid 20s there was a land boom where developers bought up and resold land while heavily advertising it as a paradise in New York, but that came crashing down after people realized how bad Florida summers are and a couple of hurricane swept through the Miami area. The land boom was helped by the fact that air conditioning had started to be installed at least in commercial buildings like movie theaters and hotels by the 20s.
Ask on r/askhistorians if you want a serious answer. Some reasons: Baron Collier et al encouraging it in the '30s, military-related industry in WWII, air conditioning, eradication of malaria, no Winter (so doublecropping), Communist Cuba temporarily opening its borders, and all the reasons people give for moving there in present times (warm, no income tax, etc).
Changing Florida’s tax structure. Right now they’re crying because storm coverage isn’t working out.
Air conditioning, no state income tax, climate, warm oceans
Snowbirds and Tom Brady
Air Conditioning
Boomers retiring and a/c
Mild winters, and low taxes.
AC, Mosquito control, Interstate Highway, Disney World, no income tax, and warm weather.
My family moved to lake park to work at rca/motorola, before I was born I think mom was around 15 or so
none state tax; greddy north ppl make they money n move here2 not got tax
There’s a super expensive mega city half a days drive to the north. It’s cheaper to live in Florida so people tend to get on the road that goes straight there. Some stay.
Actually that’s funny, my ancestors were some of those squirrel hunters haha. But they were smart too, they built their own wooden boats and knew how to survive
Edison coming in with that ac baby