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Fort Lauderdale, known as the "Venice
of America
due to its expansive and intricate canal system, is a city
in Broward County, Florida, United States. According to
2006 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the city had a population
of 185,804. It is the county seat of Broward County,
and a principal city of the South Florida metropolitan
area, which is home to over 5,463,857 people.
The city is a popular tourist destination,
with 10.35 million visitors in 2006. The city is a major
yachting center, with 42,000 resident yachts and 100 marinas
and boatyards. Fort Lauderdale and its suburbs host
over 4100 restaurants and 120 nightclubs.
Fort Lauderdale is named after a
series of forts built by the United States during the
Second Seminole War. However, development of the city
did not begin until 50 years after the forts were abandoned
at the end of the conflict. Three forts named "Fort
Lauderdale" were
constructed; the first was at the fork of the New River,
the second at Tarpon Bend, in what is now known as the
Sailboat Bend neighborhood, and the third near the site
of the Bahia Mar Marina. The forts took their name
from Major William Lauderdale, who was the commander
of the detachment of soldiers who built the first fort.
The northwestern section of Fort Lauderdale is separate
from the remainder of the city, connected only by the Cypress
Creek Canal as it flows under I-95. This section of Fort
Lauderdale borders the cities of Tamarac and Oakland Park
on its south side. Oakland Park also borders Fort Lauderdale
on the west side of its northeastern portion. The greater
portion of Fort Lauderdale in the south is bordered, along
its north side by Wilton Manors.
Climate
Off the coast of Fort Lauderdale is the
Osborne Reef, an artificial reef made of discarded tires
that has proven to be an ecological disaster.] The dumping
began in the 1960s, with the intent to provide habitat
for fish while disposing of trash from the land. However,
in the rugged and corrosive environment of the ocean, nylon
straps used to secure the tires wore out, cables rusted,
and tires broke free. The tires posed a particular threat
after breaking free from their restraints. The tires then
migrated shoreward and ran into a living reef tract, climbed
up its slope and killed everything in their path. In recent
years, thousands of tires have also washed up on nearby
beaches, especially during hurricanes. Local authorities
are now working to remove the 700,000 tires, in cooperation
with the U.S. Army, Navy and Coast Guard.
Fort Lauderdale has a true tropical
climate (Köppen
climate classification Aw), with hot, humid summers,
and warm, dry winters. The city does experience cold fronts
from November through March. However, the average monthly
temperature for any month has never been recorded as being
under 64.4 °F (January averages 66 °F). Most
of the year is warm and humid, and the summers are almost
identical to the climate of the Caribbean tropics. In addition,
the city gets most of its rain in the summer (wet season)
and is relatively dry in winter (dry season). The wet season,
which is hot and humid, lasts from May to October, when
it gives way to the dry season, which features mild temperatures
with some invasions of colder air, which is when the little
winter rainfall occurs — with the passing of a front.
The hurricane season largely coincides with the wet season.
69% of the city's annual rainfall occurs during the five
month summer period. The hurricane season is between
1 June and 30 November, with major hurricanes most
likely to affect Florida in September and October.
The most recent storms to directly affect the city were
Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Wilma, both of which struck
the city in 2005; other direct hits were Hurricane Cleo
in 1964, Hurricane King in 1950 and the 1947 Fort Lauderdale
Hurricane.
Demographics
As of the census of 2000, there were
152,397 people, 68,468 households, and 33,001 families
residing in the city. There were 68,468 households out
of which 19.6% had children under the age of 18 living
with them, 32.2% were married couples living together,
11.5% had a female householder with no husband present,
and 51.8% were non-families. 40.3% of all households were
made up of individuals and 11.7% had someone living alone
who was 65 years of age or older.
The median income for a household in the city was $37,887,
and the median income for a family was $46,175. Males had
a median income of $34,478 versus $27,230 for females.
The per capita income for the city was $27,798. About 13.8%
of families and 17.7% of the population were below the
poverty line, including 29.0% of those under age 18 and
11.1% of those aged 65 or over.
Fort Lauderdale has a significantly higher
percentage of foreign-born residents than the United States
as a whole; the 2000 census data indicated that 21.7% of
the city's population was foreign-born.] Of foreign-born
residents, 69.2% were born in Latin America and 17.3% were
born in Europe, with smaller percentages from North America,
Africa, Asia, and Oceania. In 2000, Fort Lauderdale
had the twenty-sixth highest percentage of Haitian residents
in the US, at 6.9% of the city's population, and the
127th highest percentage of Cuban residents, at 1.69% of
the city's residents.
Like many cities in South Florida, Fort
Lauderdale has a large population of people who do not
speak English as their first language at home, although
not as high as the county average. As of 2000, 75.63%
of the population spoke English as their first language,
followed by Spanish at 9.42%, French Creole 7.52%, French
2.04%, and Portuguese at 1.02%.
As of 2007, the Fort Lauderdale metropolitan
area has the second highest AIDS rate in the nation at
45.8, just ahead of the New York City metropolitan area
at 45.4. Of the reported Fort Lauderdale HIV cases among
men, 74% are cases due to men having sex with men, or MSM.
Lifestyle
According to the Greater Fort Lauderdale
Convention and Visitors Bureau, Fort Lauderdale is "America's
top gay resort area." In 2006, members of gay-interest
site, PlanetOut, named the city as the "best gay resort
town";the city actively pursues gay and lesbian
tourists.[69] The city is also home to a large year-round
population of gay residents. The city's Stonewall Library & Archives
is the largest-circulation LGBT library in the southeastern
United States. Neighboring Wilton Manors was the second
city in the country (after West Hollywood, California)
to elect a gay-majority city council.
As is true of many parts of Florida,
the city's population has a strong seasonal variation,
as snowbirds from the north spend the winter and early
spring in Florida. The city is also sometimes referred
to as "Fort Liquordale" because
of its beaches, bars, nightclubs, and history as a spring
break mecca for hundreds of thousands of college students.However,
the city has actively discouraged college students from
visiting the area since the mid-1980s, passing strict
laws aimed at preventing the mayhem that regularly occurred
each year. The city had an estimated 350,000 college visitors
for spring break 1985; by 2006, that number had declined
to about 10,000.
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