The City of Hollywood, Florida is a coastal city in Broward County with about 150,000 people (2019), located between Miami and Fort Lauderdale. The Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport borders the town, and the second busiest cruise port in the world, Port Everglades, is largely inside its municipal limits.
The Florida Turnpike, Interstate 95, Tri-County Commuter Rail, and two major railways crisscross the city from the north to the south. The Port of Miami and Miami International Airport are less than 25 miles away, giving Hollywood residents and businesses even more access to the worldwide market. Florida International University, the University of Miami, Florida Atlantic University, and various other private universities and colleges and two community college systems provide the area with post-secondary educational needs.
Hollywood is a developed and built-out municipality that experienced tremendous population growth in the mid-1900s, giving way to a steady population but changing dramatically in composition.
Money Magazine published in October 1997 that the demographics in Hollywood reflect what they predict the United States will resemble in 2022. The country is moving toward Hollywood’s racial diversity with a good mix of the young and elderly. In 2007, 27 percent of Hollywood’s residents were 55 years or older, 13 percent were 45 to 54 years old, and 31 percent were between 25 and 44. Hispanics accounted for 17 percent of the population, while African Americans accounted for 13 percent, Whites for 68 percent, and Asian Americans for 2 percent.
The City of Hollywood has evolved since its incorporation on November 28, 1925, when a municipal charter was adopted and a council/manager form of government was established. It grew from an undeveloped stretch of pine woods, palmetto trees, and dense undergrowth intermingled with tomato fields and low-lying wetlands to become Broward Country’s second-largest metropolis and Florida’s tenth-largest city.
The one square mile of farmland that Joseph Wesley Young, a Washington State native, founded, has expanded to 30 square miles and a total taxable assessed value of $17 billion according to the City's 2021 Adopted Budget. In January 1920, he traveled to South Florida to evaluate various pieces of land that he thought would be perfect for his “Dream City in Florida.” His original idea featured a broad boulevard stretching westward from the beach to the border of the Everglades, with man-made lakes running parallel to either side. The Intracoastal Waterway would be at one end of each lake, while the other would function as a twin-turning basin for private boats.
Young’s design also featured the division of Hollywood into districts, which served as a forerunner to today’s zoning regulations. His idea involved a central commercial center, huge park spaces, schools, a golf course, and churches. Young envisioned that Hollywood would be “a metropolis for everyone - from the wealthy at the top of the industrial and social ladder to the most modest of working people.”
With the construction of the Anne Kolb Nature Center in Hollywood’s West Lake Track earlier in the century, the city has added more shine to its image as the Diamond of the Gold Coast. The facility is home to a bird sanctuary and a fish nursery ground, with approximately 1,500 acres of mangrove reserves.
