Hollywood Florida The City of Hollywood Florida is a mature and built-out community, where rapid population growth in the 1950s and 1960s has given way to a population that is stable in size but undergoing significant changes in its composition. The October 1997 issue of Money Magazine noted that Hollywood's demographics best represent what the United States will look like in the year 2022. Twenty-seven percent of Hollywood's residents are 55 or older; thirteen percent are 45 to 54; and thirty-one percent are 25 to 44. Hispanics make up seventeen percent; African Americans thirteen percent; Whites sixty-eight percent; and Asian Americans two percent of the population. The magazine forecasts that this will be the composition of the United States in the year 2022, with the exception that Hispanics will be fourteen percent and Asian Americans five percent. Hollywood, the "City of the Future," is proud of its cultural and racial diversity. A coastal city of over 130,000 residents located in Broward County, Hollywood is nestled between Fort Lauderdale and Miami. Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport abuts the city, while Port Everglades, the second busiest cruise port in the world, is partially within its municipal boundaries. Interstate 95, the Florida Turnpike, Tri-County Commuter Rail, and two major railroads cut through the city in a north-south direction. Miami International Airport and the Port of Miami are less than twenty-five miles away, providing further opportunities for Hollywood residents and companies to have access to the global marketplace. The region is served by a substantial post-secondary educational infrastructure, including Florida Atlantic University, Florida International University, the University of Miami, a number of smaller private universities and colleges, and a community college system. From its formal incorporation by adoption of a municipal charter on November 28, 1925, the City of Hollywood has transformed itself. Beginning as an undeveloped tract of pine forests, palmetto plants, and tangled undergrowth interspersed with tomato farms and low lying marshland, it has become the second-most populated city in Broward County and the ninth largest city in the State of Florida. Founded by the planning visionary Joseph Wesley Young, a Washington state native and former resident of California and Indiana, the original one square mile of farmland has grown to over 28.87 square miles with a gross taxable value of real and personal property in 1998 of over $5,408,266,000.
Unique to Hollywood is the location of the Seminole Indian Reservation, a politically independent entity, within the corporate limits of the city. In 1971, Hollywood was the site of the "Pageant of the Unconquered Seminoles" which drew the attendance of Native Americans from across the United States. Celebrating the city's Fiftieth Anniversary in 1975, Hollywood adopted the nickname the "Diamond of the Gold Coast." In recent years, Hollywood has continued to add luster to its reputation as the Diamond of the Gold Coast with the opening of the Anne Kolb Nature Center located in Hollywood's West Lake Tract. The center boasts over 1,500 acres of mangrove preserves and is the site of a protected bird rookery and sanctuary as well as a fish nursery ground. On Hollywood's North Beach, a sea turtle hatchery and preserve has been developed. The historic downtown arts district along Harrison Street and the Hollywood Art & Culture Center have become centers of activity in the cultural arts and entertainment communities of South Florida.
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