The future of Florida: Charting a new course
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What does Florida mean to you?
Site selectors, economic recruiters, competitors, new business arrivals and those who chose to move elsewhere offer insights on the state.
"Florida's kind of been the sleeping giant in that it's a dynamic economy. It consistently ranks high in Tax Foundation's tax climate. 
In fact, if you look right now, we're currently fifth in the United States and if you look at the four above us, they're Western states that we don't compete with. The point being, that from a business climate standpoint, we're competitive. But where the competition sees Florida in the past has been that ‘it's just hard to do business here.' That has been how states would position Florida as the competitive disadvantage. In a year's time, with Gov. Scott and removing regulations, making it easier to do business here, word is getting out."
— Gray Swoope, Florida Secretary of Commerce,
president and CEO of Enterprise Florida
Boom times for Florida cattle ranches
Cattle ranchers in Polk County and Florida are riding a perfect storm with strong tailwinds pushing toward prosperity. "If ever we've gotten a perfect storm in cattle, it's now," said Cary Lightsey of Lightsey Cattle Co. in Lake Wales. "Demand is solid right now. What's really helped the industry is exports." [Source: Lakeland Ledger]
Security firms look to cash in on RNC
With the Republican National Convention four months away, restaurants are marketing menus and hotels are advertising amenities. But private security firms, lawyers and bodyguard training companies are relying on something else to sell their services. Fear. [Source: Tampa Bay Times]
Charter schools get a second helping of free money
Established charter schools are able to tap into grants meant to help start-ups by nesting schools within schools. Sometimes the two schools share everything, from staffers to teachers to buildings.
[Source: Miami Herald]
ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:
› Orlando-based Golf Channel in the swing of things
Seventeen years ago, Golf Channel co-founder Joe Gibbs wasn't sure if the newly established cable-TV network would make enough money each week to pay the 180-person staff.
Now the Orlando-based company employs nearly 500 Central Floridians, and the modest offices that Gibbs opened in 1995 have become a sprawling, 119,000-square-foot complex on a street that was just renamed after the company.
› West Melbourne business all revved up with no money to go
As the economy sputters back to life, some small business owners struggle to find a bank to back their endeavors.
› The dollars behind the reign of the Miami Heat’s Three Kings
The signing of LeBron James didn’t just give the Miami Heat the inside track to the NBA championship.
His 2010 defection from Cleveland unleashed an explosion in beer sales and ticket revenue, and triggered a huge increase in sponsorship dollars inside the AmericanAirlines Arena.
› Tavares seaplane base sparks downtown renaissance
Two years ago, this Lake County city took an $8 million plunge to become "America's Seaplane City," hoping that a new airport catering to seaplanes would resuscitate its dying downtown.
Skeptics thought it was crazy to spend that kind of money in the depths of a recession. But the gamble has landed the city of 14,000 economic prosperity, with new businesses opening, construction under way and a boom in tourism.
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› Company offers $315M floating train to Central Florida
Nearly 20 years after vowing to build magnetically levitated trains in Volusia County, Tony Morris is back in Central Florida pitching a $315 million mass-transportation deal that seems almost too good to be true.
› Critics say haphazard, politically driven university system hampers Florida
In 1980, a powerful state senator decided his hometown university needed a football stadium.
As Senate president, he inserted the provision into the budget bill. But the governor rejected plan, noting the University of West Florida in Pensacola did not even have a football team.
The episode underscores how often raw politics trumps thoughtful policy in Florida’s higher-education system.
› Bad-neighbor banks neglect thousands of South Florida homes
Thousands of vacant homes across South Florida have deteriorated into eyesores that violate local health and safety laws, depress property values and spread blight. The owners of these homes: some of the world's biggest banks.
› Florida's eco-chic
South Florida is key to an assortment of recycled products — from building materials manufactured in Italy to desk-top accessories handcrafted at kitchen tables.
Various local artists, artisans and businesses are enthusiastically focusing their attention on devising and promoting fresh uses for old stuff that might otherwise be trash.