Florida is in the Big Time!

We’re in the Big Time

I’m convinced that Florida is overtaking California as a bellwether state.  The international commerce, the emergence of South Beach and the continued economic expansion of the theme parks, resort areas, etc. are becoming more popular than the older, more polluted and congested state of affairs in California.  Florida has nature in abundance, thriving metropolises in Jacksonville, Tampa, Orlando and South Florida.  We even have a Redneck Riviera on the gulf coast.  International travel to Europe and South America is more convenient.  Florida is a peninsula and tropical in climate.  Our artists, authors and entertainers have national acclaim.  Personalities are purchasing homes in cosmopolitan Palm Beach and Miami.  The super rich are attracted to the cultural and social aspects of South Florida and are undeterred by the traffic and congestion.  

New York and Los Angeles are dominant in the entertainment industry and publishing industry but they became that over a period of several decades and out of a lack of a new central location.  Florida may well be the destination to converge those industries and high tech industries.  Deteriorating infrastructure in the old areas and emerging infrastructure (and technological advances in communications) have tended to outweigh the necessity of living in the old centers.

It is true that the entertainment gurus in Orlando have literally manufactured a culture.  Where Hollywood is and will be a mecca for music, film and mayhem, Orlando is so new.  It was born in 1972 when Disney came.  Before the entertainment giant came to town, the city was a depot for citrus and a third rate financial (insurance) center.  With some notable exceptions, none of which come to mind, but I’m trying to be nice, Orlando was a major bore.  That’s not necessarily bad.  It’s just that Orlando’s prominence as a major U.S. city, it’s high-profile airport and convention center, and especially it’s international draw, the theme parks, is a phenomenon that is only 25 years old.  It’s about the same as the comparison of the colonies vs. the great European powers.

This upstart city has a personality that is developing, but it’s so immature, that it just allows the corporations to dominate it.  Universal wants to build more, Disney wants to build more.  Sea World wants to build more.  The only thing the City asks is for the developments to pay for the impact by contributing to the road and sewer systems needed to support their massive projects.  Population booms.  The entire area is always in a transformation.  The projects promote the growth of residential and retail to support the employee’s lifestyle.  The entertainment is formed from mimicking national trends and trying it on for size here.  Tourists, of course, are from other areas and support the local area and are entertained, amused and then leave to be replaced by another tourist who has a similar experience.

  

What can be said of the local resident?  The locals have the opportunity to enjoy a world-class entertainment/amusement mecca.  The overexposure to the theme parks promotes apathy and some condescension.  In spite of that, the local residents benefit from the revenue generated in the form of resort tax.  The residents put up with the traffic and the construction and the hassle and enjoy new schools, new arenas, new libraries, etc.  There is a definite parallel to Las Vegas.  Las Vegas exists for one reason.  It was formed from the desert in support of gambling.  It still is forming like some demented bacteria.  I suppose Las Vegas is one of the few cities Orlando can look down upon.  Orlando is younger but it is more wholesome.  After all, Orlando is the support team of the family entertainment giants.  Vegas is the vassal of evil and greed.

A comical view is that Miami looks down upon Orlando.  Orlando owes it’s success to a geographical advantage.  Miami was a popular destination up through the sixties, when the bubble burst and the tackiness was laughably obvious.  Orlando simply had the good fortune to be an inexpensive, but centrally located city in waiting.  Disney would have met resistance in Miami.  

Metropolitan areas such as Tampa and Jacksonville were too established by the early seventies.  Disney needed a place it could conform to it’s image.  Although it could have been Gainesville, Orlando was the lucky suitor.  It’s still the bride of corporate entertainment and it is a prominent socialite now.  One of the Nouveau Riche, but still a force in society circles.    The notion that the world can be entertained by a corporate world is in itself a little intimidating.  Corporations feed on capital.  They extract capital from consumers.  The best corporate scenario is to be fed systematically.  The consumer market as a whole is under a mass hypnosis.  The corporate giants convince us that their park is the “best place on earth” and that their entertainment reflects society.  The corporate world is unable to compete with nature which truly is the “best place on earth”.