16 Best Places to Live In Florida
In this piece, we will take a look at the 16 best places to live in Florida. For more places, head on over to 5 Best Places to Live In Florida.
Who doesn't love Florida, the Sunshine State? When the rest of America is battling snowstorms and extreme winters, Floridians still get a chance to see the Sun regularly, and when snow does fall, it isn't heavy. This is due to the fact that Florida, along with Texas, forms the Southmost tip of the continental United States, with its highest elevation, Briton Hill, standing at a mere 395 feet tall. However, despite the fact that Florida doesn't have any mountains of its own, the region has still made its mark on the mountainous regions of the U.S. This is because the Appalachian Mountains, located far above Florida and in the Northeastern segment of the U.S., draw their name from some of the earliest known inhabitants of Florida, the Apalachee tribes. The mountains were called Apalachee by the Spanish who passed an Apalachee village on their way inside the U.S. in the sixteenth century, and the name has stuck since then.
Florida is also one of the oldest territories in the U.S., having been present in its current form since 1822. It was however a relatively late joiner to the Union itself and did not sign the original Articles of Confederation which were the first form of government of the newly formed United States of America in 1776. Florida was also not part of the group of 13 states that had declared independence and fought against the British to win American freedom. After the Revolution, the state, which initially belonged to the Spanish, was gradually taken over by the new U.S. government, until 1822 when the Spaniards finally ceded the entire area. Florida was admitted into the Union in 1845 - which was disappointing for former slaves who had often used the area as a refuge.
Since then, Florida has become an economic powerhouse. It is the fourth biggest state in the U.S. when it comes to economic output, with the size of the Florida gross domestic product (GDP) estimated to sit at a cool $1.4 trillion as of the third quarter of last year - making the Sunshine State lag behind only the biggest American powerhouses such as New York, Texas, and of course, California. In fact, a $1.4 trillion GDP makes Florida almost equal to Mexico in terms of economic output, with the latter's GDP estimate sitting at $1.42 trillion. In fact, the state's GDP is now bigger than its former colonizer, the Kingdom of Spain, which has a $1.38 trillion GDP. And since we're comparing economies, Florida also has a larger economy than the world's largest oil producer, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
So what powers this economic beast? Well, a large chunk of Florida's income comes from the tourism industry. This is natural since its beaches and other areas provide visitors with plenty to do during their visits - which are also fueled by warm weather during the cold winters. At the same time, the cruise ship industry is also an important sector in the economy, as you'll find out if you head on over to 10 Best Cruise Stocks To Buy Now. Florida is also one of the biggest phosphate mining hubs in the world, responsible for meeting large portions of both the U.S. and global needs.
Finally, the region also has a rare tourist attraction in the form of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Kennedy Space Center. Florida's Space Coast has had the honor of seeing astronauts lift off to the Moon, the Space Shuttle conduct regular missions to the International Space Station, and more recently, see the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) Falcon 9 both launch and land. At the same time, Florida has also been home to large numbers of military personnel, which ends up contributing billions of dollars to its economy as well.
Florida also made news in the hedge fund industry recently, when Ken Griffin's Citadel Investment Group decided to relocate its headquarters to Miami from Chicago, Illinois. Griffin's Citadel moved to Florida during the coronavirus pandemic when he started a trading floor at a hotel, and the billionaire hedge fund boss shared his experience during an interview with Bloomberg where he stated:
Well actually, look lets go back to that story for a moment. . . .we realized that we needed the ability to maintain markets, U.S. equity market, at the start of the pandemic. We're the largest trader of equities in the United States, we account for roughly one in four shares that change hands everyday. So, we have a, we have a job that transcends just being here for Citadel, we view ourselves as we want to be here for the tens of millions of retail investors that count on us to provide liquidity. And the thousands of companies that look to us as being their principal market maker in their stock. And at the Four Seasons in Palm Beach, in about five days, we built a trading floor that could have handled the entire equity volume of the United States of America. So I took my son to the Four Seasons when we were doing this, I wanted him to see what two hundred people working at midnight looked like.
Because this is how you make things happen. And when we finished that trading floor build out, we put hundreds of colleagues and their families there, shut the doors, no one allowed to enter. No one allowed to leave. So to the NBA, this is how you build a bubble, this is how you do it fast. And that served us incredibly well. We were able to handle our trading in the U.S. equities market flawlessly throughout the pandemic. And I would say I have a debt of gratitude to the leadership of Palm Beach, the city, the county, the state, for their willingness to help us make that happen in five days. I mean, in New York we'd still be filing paperwork to do this.
With these details in mind, let's take a look at the best places to live in Florida.
Pixabay/ Public Domain
Our Methodology
To compile our list, we consulted Forbes, U.S. News, and Travel and Leisure for the best cities and places to live in Florida. Each time a city appeared on a list, it was assigned a corresponding score based on its rank (for instance, if Palm Beach ranked at 4, it would receive four points). Then, if a city was missing from a list, it was assigned zero points and the final scores were computed by averaging the points for each city. The top sixteen places to live in Florida are listed below.
Best Places to Live In Florida
16. The Villages
Insider Monkey's Score: 1
The Villages isn't a city in Florida but a region that is demarcated for census purposes. It is named after a retirement home, covers an area of 32 square miles, and has roughly 80,000 people living in it. Home prices in the area are appreciating massively and saw nearly 50% returns between 2021 and 2022.
15. Daytona Beach
Insider Monkey's Score: 2
Daytona Beach is the first city on our list and has a population that is slightly lower than The Villages. The city was founded in the late 1800s and it is primarily a tourist location, with the industry fueling its economy as well. Daytona Beach is also known to house the headquarters of the National Association of Stock Car Racing (NASCAR).
14. West Palm Beach
Insider Monkey's Score: 3
West Palm Beach is part of the Miami Metropolitan Area and was settled in 1884. Some of the major employers in the region are rocket and aerospace companies such as Aerojet Rocketdyne and General Dynamics.
13. Port St. Lucie
Insider Monkey's Score: 3
Port St. Lucie sits at the eastern corner of St. Lucie county in Florida. It is one of the younger cities in the region since it was incorporated in 1961.
12. Cape Coral
Insider Monkey's Score: 3
Cape Coral is another young Florida city since it was incorporated in 1957. The city has a relatively lower corporate presence, with some of its biggest employers being hospitals and the government.
11. Sarasota
Insider Monkey's Score: 3
Sarasota is a coastal city on the Florida Gulf Coast. It is one of the oldest cities in the U.S., and was known as Zarazote in the 16th century. Sarasota is a great place for whiskey lovers, as it hosts Florida's largest whiskey festival.
10. Fort Myers
Insider Monkey's Score: 3
Fort Myers is known to have housed both Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. It was incorporated in 1885 and is located right beside the Fort Myers beach town.
9. Melbourne
Insider Monkey's Score: 3
Melbourne was first settled in 1867 and is named after its first postmaster general who had previously lived in Melbourne, Australia.
8. Ocala
Insider Monkey's Score: 4
Ocala is one of the older American cities which was first settled in 1849. The city is known for its preserved historic homes, which are designed in British Baroque architecture.
7. Tampa
Insider Monkey's Score: 4
Tampa is another city on the Florida Gulf Coast, and it was first settled in 1823. The city has the presence of several large corporate giants such as Wal-Mart and JPMorgan.
6. Jacksonville
Insider Monkey's Score: 5
Jacksonville is one of Florida's largest cities, and the second largest city in the Southern region of the U.S. It has vibrant logistics and finance industries.
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Disclosure: None. 16 Best Places to Live In Florida is originally published on Insider Monkey.