Economy
List of amusement parks in Greater Orlando and List of Orlando, Florida attractions
Greater Orlando is best known for its tourism industry, which attracts millions of visitors each year. Famous attractions include Walt Disney World Resort, SeaWorld and Universal Studios. Tourism has brought to Orlando numerous hotels, restaurants, and shopping malls all ranging from low-cost to upscale options.
The citrus industry has declined over the past 100 years as farmers moved orange groves further south to more frostproof areas. Some consider the Christmas 1989 freeze to be the death knell of commercial citrus farming within Greater Orlando. There are still three major orange juice plants remaining in the area: Cutrale Citrus Juices in Leesburg; Florida's Natural Growers in Umatilla; and Silver Springs Citrus in Howey-in-the-Hills. Minute Maid maintains a major juice flavoring plant in Apopka.
Other agricultural pursuits, particularly cattle farming, remain important parts of the Central Florida economy, but are now all located on the outer fringes of the metro area. Orlando is the largest city in Central Florida and is also a major food processing center.
Metro Orlando has served as a major military defense and aerospace center since the World War II. The most prominent defense contractor in the area is Lockheed Martin, which operates both a laboratory and a manufacturing facility in Orlando. Military presence began in the 1940s, with the opening of McCoy Air Force Base and the Orlando Naval Training Center. McCoy AFB was a major hub of B-52 Stratofortress operations. McCoy AFB was split between the city and NTC Orlando in 1974, and NTC Orlando closed in the mid-1990s. McCoy AFB is now the location of the Orlando International Airport. Farther north in Sanford, the Orlando Sanford International Airport was originally Naval Air Station Sanford.
Metro Orlando's economy has greatly diversified from tourism and the area is now considered a major hi-tech center. University of Central Florida is regarded as one of the best computer, and engineering public universities in the United States, and is currently building a new medical school. The Central Florida Research Park is the seventh largest research park in the United States. In addition to having a Lockheed Martin branch, it also hosts other major hi-tech companies such as Oracle Corporation, Electronic Arts, and Siemens.
By 2012, Orlando is expected to become a major biotechnology cluster. In addition to the UCF College of Medicine, a VA Hospital, a Sanford-Burnham Institute research center and a Nemours Foundation children's hospital are being constructed.
Read more about this topic: Greater Orlando
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Cities need old buildings so badly it is probably impossible for vigorous streets and districts to grow without them.... for really new ideas of any kind—no matter how ultimately profitable or otherwise successful some of them might prove to be—there is no leeway for such chancy trial, error and experimentation in the high-overhead economy of new construction. Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.”
—Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)
“Quidquid luce fuit tenebris agit: but also the other way around. What we experience in dreams, so long as we experience it frequently, is in the end just as much a part of the total economy of our soul as anything we “really” experience: because of it we are richer or poorer, are sensitive to one need more or less, and are eventually guided a little by our dream-habits in broad daylight and even in the most cheerful moments occupying our waking spirit.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)