A small coastal city located between the cities of Delray Beach to the north and Deerfield Beach to the south. Contrary to popular belief, "raton" does NOT mean rat in spanish, it means mouse. The city was named Boca Raton because the first men to sail into the the region's bay believed it was shaped like a mouse's head.

Besides all the "blue hairs", there is also a number of younger folk in Boca Raton. The city is home Florida's smallest state university, Florida Atlantic University, which was the southern most airforce base during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Boca Raton is also environmentally idealistic. In the early 70's, the planning board passed a law limiting the population of the town to 100,000, by restricting the number of housing units to 40,000. They did this to preserve the quality of life to both the city's residents and wildlife. The developers didn't like the law and the battle went all the way to the supreme court where it was deemed unconstitutional. Fortunately, the battle lasted almost 10 years resulting in limited development during this time and allowing Boca Raton to be "greener" than surrounding cities.
Boca is also my hometown. I don't have blue hair (though sometimes I contemplate coloring it).

People elsewhere in south Florida sometimes sneeringly refer to this place as "Rat's Mouth" (though, as already stated by others, this is an incorrect Spanish translation), due to the presence of an abnormally high number of con men and other white collar criminals in this city, perhaps attracted there by the large number of wealthy retired people ripe for fleecing.

Boca Raton also has the distinction of being the world center for supermarket tabloids, ever since the two leading U.S. tabloid publishers merged and set up their headquarters here. Look in practically any tabloid at your checkout counter, from the National Enquirer to the Weekly World News, and you'll probably see a Boca Raton address in its masthead.

There are also a number of high-tech businesses there, with staffs of young, well-educated professionals, so the population is more diverse than some of the other descriptions would make it seem.

Boca Raton, along with the rest of South Florida, is a good example of suburban sprawl at its worst. Basically, 75% of the development in this area has occured in the past two or three decades. The native vegetation of South Florida is thick, impassable mangrove swamp. The climate is unforgivingly hot and humid all year round. As a result, this area was more or less uninhabited before 1950 or so. (Some coastal areas might have been inhabited, but the interior by and large was devoid of human inhabitation. It still is, to some extent. See Everglades National Park).

So, when air conditioning and and clear-cutting became the primary modus operandi for developing land, South Florida was a primary target. It had a tropical climate, and plenty of unused land, provided someone was willing to brave the mosquitoes and bulldoze the mangroves. As a result, the whole interior area in Boca Raton and the surrounding communities is full of typical late 20th century architecture. If you visit older areas of the country, like New England and the Mid-Atlantic states, the buildings are very close together. The streets curve and bend where necessary. In general, space is saved wherever possible, because there just isn't a lot of room in that area.

The Boca Raton area is just the opposite. Every street is straight as an arrow, and every street is also a 6-lane divided-with-a-median deal, and they all intersect one another at perfect 90° angles. Everything is massively spaced out. There are several hundred feet of lawn or landscaping between every building. Coincidentally, all the facilities in the area tend to clump together - all the grocery stores together, all the restaurants together, all the auto dealerships together, all the walled retirement communities together and so on. Getting from your location to any necessary amenity requires a lengthy drive.


I don't live in this area, but I've visited it numerous times while visiting my grandparents, who do live there. So I almost think I know what I'm talking about.

Perhaps the most curious thing visitors to Boca will notice is that a number of the municipal buildings are painted a lovely shade of pink. Local folklore links this to the influence of Addison Mizner on its early politics. Mr. Mizner is the gentleman responsible for the Boca Raton Resort Hotel and Club, a five-star facility that loves to fleece local high school students by encouraging them to hold proms in their banquet hall.

Most of the wealthy residents said to live in Boca actually reside in gated communities like Woodfield 3 in an unincorporated area known lovingly as West Boca; the western border of the city proper varies from north to south, but generally falls around Lyons Road.

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