Special report Florida
TheEconomistApril2nd 2022 3The Sunshine State also rises
T
o understand florida, drive south from Miami across the
highway spans that arc over the glassy sea. A century ago,
trains took a similar path, winding 153 miles (246km) down to Key
West, the southernmost city in the continental United States.
Crowned the “eighth wonder of the world” when it opened in 1912,
the Overseas Railroad was the creation of Henry Flagler, a founder
of Standard Oil who spent $50m building railways and hotels in
Florida, equivalent to more than $1.6bn today.
In 1935 a hurricane destroyed most of the Overseas Railroad.
But Floridians did not accept defeat. After feverish reconstruction,
the route reopened as the Overseas Highway, one of the world’s
longest overwater roads. Today, a handful of the original spans
have been converted into piers for fishermen and paths for tour-
ists. The Overseas Highway embodies a central feature of Florida: a
persistent desire to reshape the environment and dominate an in-
hospitable land. In his book “Finding Florida”, T.D. Allman calls
Florida “the Play-Doh State”: people have repeatedly taken the goo
and moulded it to fit their dreams.
Continental America’s southernmost state was once a periph-
eral destination for a few tourists and sun-seekers. Today it is cru-
cial to the country’s future. Whereas America’s population growth
has slowed sharply, Florida’s has boomed. Between 2010 and 2020
the state’s population grew by 15%, twice the national rate. Florida
has overtaken New York as America’s third-most-populous state
(after California and Texas). Some 22m people now call it home,
and another 7m people are expected to do so by 2040. From 1940 to
2020, Florida’s population increased 11-fold. It leads the country in
domestic migration and, six years ago, overtook California to be-
come the top destination for foreigners moving to America.
Florida has now “challenged California to be America’s cultural
and demographic touchstone”, writes the historian Gary Mormino
in his forthcoming book “Dreams in the New Century”. The coun-
try’s political division can be spotted in images of Donald Trump
brooding on his loss of the presidency in 2020 at his Mar-a-Lago
golf course in Palm Beach and Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican
governor and a presidential hopeful, railing against President Joe
Biden’s covid-19 policies.
Most people looking at Florida see either sunshine or shadows:
a tax- and regulation-light recipe for national success, or a cau-
tionary tale of a short-termist society that has ignored long-term
vulnerabilities. The collapse last year of a condominium tower in
Surfside, which killed 98 people, had a tragic, Floridian edge, born
of neglect and short-term savings against long-term sustainability
and lack of oversight. As the state with the longest coastline in
continental America, Florida faces an existential threat from sea-
level rise, but has failed to prepare itself for the consequences.
Florida’s prominence is new. St Augustine on its Atlantic coast
is America’s oldest permanent European settlement, dating fromFlorida is booming and becoming more important, with big consequences
for America, says Alexandra Suich Bass