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BOCA RATON, FLORIDA - USA
Boca Raton is a city located in Palm Beach County, Florida. As of the 2000
census, the city had a total population of 74,764. The city of Boca Raton
was incorporated in May of 1925.
Geography
Boca Raton is located at 26°22'7" North, 80°6'0" West (26.368699,
-80.100077). Boca Raton is the southernmost town in Palm Beach County. It is
on the East coast between Delray Beach to the north and Deerfield Beach, in
Broward County, to the south.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of
75.4 km˛ (29.1 mi˛). 70.4 km˛ (27.2 mi˛) of it is land and 5.0 km˛ (1.9 mi˛)
of it is water. The total area is 6.63% water.
Demographics
As of the census of 2000, there are 74,764 people, 31,848 households, and
20,000 families residing in the city. The population density is 1,061.7/km˛
(2,749.8/mi˛). There are 37,547 housing units at an average density of
533.2/km˛ (1,381.0/mi˛). The racial makeup of the city is 90.75% White,
3.76% African American, 0.16% Native American, 1.99% Asian, 0.04% Pacific
Islander, 1.39% from other races, and 1.90% from two or more races. 8.51% of
the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race.
There are 31,848 households out of which 24.1% have children under the age
of 18 living with them, 53.1% are married couples living together, 7.1% have
a female householder with no husband present, and 37.2% are non-families.
29.5% of all households are made up of individuals and 11.6% have someone
living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is
2.26 and the average family size is 2.81.
In the city the population is spread out with 18.9% under the age of 18,
8.1% from 18 to 24, 26.4% from 25 to 44, 26.7% from 45 to 64, and 19.8% who
are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 43 years. For every 100
females there are 95.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there
are 92.8 males.
The median income for a household in the city is $60,248, and the median
income for a family is $77,861. Males have a median income of $52,287 versus
$33,347 for females. The per capita income for the city is $45,628. 6.7% of
the population and 4.1% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the
total people living in poverty, 6.0% are under the age of 18 and 4.9% are 65
or older.
Industries
According to MessageLabs, (an email security vendor), Boca Raton is the "spam
capital of the world", being the source of a surprisingly high fraction of
all spam generated worldwide. According to the Miami Herald, the town has a
long history of involvement in confidence tricks, and Richard Breeden (former
Securities and Exchange Commission chairman) once called the town "the only
coastal town in Florida where there are more sharks on land than in the
water." In the keynote address to a computer security conference on 8 June
2004, Bruce Sterling described the town as the "Capone-Chicago of cyber
fraud." According to a number of US Federal indictments, as at June, 2004
the Gambino family continues to operate in Boca Raton.
On 22 July 2004, Boca Raton resident Scott Levine was charged with the
largest computer crime indictment in United States history. Federal
prosecutors allege that Levine unlawfully accessed databases of consumer
data aggregator Acxiom (http://www.acxiom.com/) to steal detailed personal
information about millions of persons. Several on-line sources claim that
Levine is an associate of Eddy Marin, a pornographer and convicted cocaine
dealer who runs one of the largest Boca Raton spam outfits. The indictment
against Levine also includes money laundering charges.
Boca Raton was also the site of the first anthrax attack in the United
States when two employees at the American Media Corporation building in Boca
Raton became ill. Bob Stevens, photo editor of the Sun newspaper, died of
inhalation anthrax while Ernesto Blanco, a 73-year old mail room employee,
recovered. The American Media Corporation relocated and their building was
abandoned and behind a chain-link fence for 3 years until in summer 2004 it
became the last building in the United States to be decontaminated of
anthrax spores using chlorine dioxide gas. See Timeline of the 2001 anthrax
attacks in Florida.
History
The name "Boca Raton" predates the city, and was given to the cove where the
city stands by Spanish settlers. "Boca Raton" literally translates from
Spanish as "mouth of the rat", but was an idiom meaning "pirate's cove".
The town's early history was as the site of Addison Mizner's Boca Raton
Hotel, its most prominent building. The "pink hotel" today is visible from
miles away as a towering building on the Intracoastal Waterway. The Pearl
City neighborhood of Boca Raton was established to originally house the
service personnel for the hotel. Japanese farmers converted the land west of
the city into pineapple plantations about 1905. During World War II much of
their land was confiscated and used as the site of a major training facility
for B-29 bomber crews. The airbase was later donated to become the grounds
of Florida Atlantic University, many of whose parking lots are former
runways of the airbase.
In the 1970s Boca Raton became home to a special subdivision of IBM which
was responsible in 1981 for designing the first IBM PC. IBM relocated their
manufacturing facilities for the PC to North Carolina and eventually closed
down and sold their Blue Lake facility to other tenants.
Boca Raton became famous for passing a town ordinance banning the further
develoment of multi-family housing within the city limits and for special
zoning that limits the size and types of commercial buildings and
advertisement signs which may be erected within the city limits. There are
no traditional car dealerships in Boca Raton because of these limits on
roadside use, but a luxury car dealer did showcase a few cars inside a
roadside building. Corporations such as McDonalds had to redesign their
classic "golden arches" restaurant to conform to Boca Raton's sign zoning
restrictions. The effects can be seen in the city in which a number of
buildings were constructed with classic Addison Mizner architecture and in
the subdued roadside advertising.
In the 1990s a new downtown shopping center, Mizner Park, was built which
has become a cultural center for the city. Featuring a landscaped central
park between two cobblestone paved roads with stores only on the outside of
the roads, Mizner Park resembles a turn-of-the-century town more than a
shopping center. It features many fine restaurants and is home to the Boca
Raton Museum of Art .
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