Florida's Gold Coast is a region of the U.S. state located on the Atlantic coast of South Florida, including the cities of Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach though its definition has changed over time. The best known of Florida's vernacular regions, the name is a worldwide reference to the wealth and ritzy tropical resort lifestyle that characterize the area. Many movies and TV shows annually shoot in the Florida Gold Coast because of the tropical scenery and trendy stores and resort lifestyle.
History
The Gold Coast is one of several "Coast" regions found in Florida, including the Space Coast, Treasure Coast, Emerald Coast, Nature Coast, Forgotten Coast, the Sun Coast and the First Coast. Like several of the others, it seems to have originated at the time the area first saw major growth. It was well established at the time of a 1982 survey of Florida's vernacular regions by Ary J. Lamme and Raymond K. Oldakowski, who indicate that the name denoted "the high cost of living in these areas, as well as the supposedly glittering lifestyle". At that time, survey respondents from Dade County (now Miami-Dade) in the south, through Broward and Palm Beach Counties and into Martin County in the north, identified their area as the Gold Coast.
A 2007 survey by the same authors found that the Gold Coast was the best known of all of Florida's regions across the state, but that it was then restricted primarily to Miami-Dade and Broward Counties, corresponding to the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale area. People from Palm Beach and Martin Counties chiefly identified their areas as part of a new region, the Treasure Coast, which also included St. Lucie and Indian River Counties. Lamme and Oldakowski note that Palm Beach County remained part of South Florida and the Miami metropolitan area. They suggest that negative connotations that had developed for the Gold Coast and a desire to distinguish the area conceptually from Miami may have led to the emergence of the Treasure Coast.
See also
- North Shore (Long Island)
References
Bibliography
- Lamme, Ary J.; Oldakowski, Raymond K. (2007). "Spinning a New Geography of Vernacular Regional Identity: Florida in the Twenty-First Century". Southeastern Geographer. University of North Carolina Press. 47 (2): 320â€"340. doi:10.1353/sgo.2007.0029.Â
External links
- Florida Gold Coast travel guide from Wikivoyage
