winph Jobs and Housing Help Fuel Rapid Growth in Tampa
Updated:2024-10-10 03:09 Views:115
For 10,000 years, people have relied on the natural resources of Tampa Bay, with its seagrass meadows, mangrove forests and diverse array of fauna.
But the relationship has changed drastically over the past 150 years as new economic drivers transformed the region. First came railroads and commercial shipping, in the 19th century. More recently, real estate development and the health care industry have drawn millions of people to the region, all against the backdrop of Florida’s largest open-water estuary.
The Tampa region’s population first ballooned after Florida became a state in 1845. By the late 1880s, the region became a key trade route, thanks to both the expansion of railroads and the discovery of phosphate east of Tampa. Cigar factories also provided jobs.
The broad, shallow bay was not a natural candidate for a busy port, but heavy dredging projects in the 20th century eventually turned Tampa into one of the busiest ports in the world.
ImageThe history of the Tampa Bay area “is not a history of storms,” one expert said, but that may be changing. Credit...Johnny Milano for The New York Times“In order to live in Tampa Bay, there have been significant environmental transformations that had their own environmental costs,” said Evan Bennett, a history professor at Florida Atlantic University and the author of “Tampa Bay: The Story of an Estuary and Its People.”
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