When many people hear about Boca Raton their first images are that of happy senior citizens enjoying their twilight years playing shuffleboard, bingo and going to restaurants at 4:30 in the afternoon to enjoy the 'early-bird special.' That may have been true in the past, but today Boca Raton is a vibrant lively beach community offering sun, fun and excitement for all ages.

Additionally, Boca Raton is the corporate hometown of such companies as IBM and Office Depot, that combined with the thriving tourism industry provides a solid employment base for its residents. In popular culture, Boca Raton is still idiomatically used for indicating retirement, Jerry Seinfeld consistently refers to it as “God's waiting room,” Fran Drescher, a.k.a. The Nanny, would consistently urge her parents to move there, and Chelsea Handler, host of Chelsea Lately, uses Boca Raton as a metaphor for the elderly, but in reality, this is far from the truth.

The Town's History

Boca Raton is a city in Palm Beach County, Florida, and was incorporated in May 1925. The literal translation of "Boca Raton" is "Mouse Mouth." The origin of the city's name is Spanish. The word boca, meaning mouth, which was and still is used to describe a local inlet. Ratón, literally meaning mouse, was used by Spanish sailors to describe rocks that gnawed at ships ropes. A different, but somewhat more romantic notion of the name is that Boca Raton refers metaphorically to the area being a pirate's cove.

The name Boca Ratones originally appeared on eighteenth century maps associated with an inlet in the Biscayne Bay area of Miami. In the 1920's the Florida land boom came to Boca Raton and in 1926 Addison Mizner's Ritz-Carlton Cloister Inn was built. The hotel was later renamed the Boca Raton Resort & Club. Today it is often referred to as the "Pink Hotel," this towering building on the Intracoastal Waterway is visible from miles away.

Redevelopment

In the 1980s, an explosion of development west of the center of the city, sparked decay in some eastern areas, including the downtown corridor. The old Boca Raton Mall, a downtown shopping mall, suffered declining vacancy, probably due to the opening of Town Center at Boca Raton in 1980. A decade later, along came Mizner Park, a downtown attraction in Boca Raton's financial district, that was transformed from the old Boca mall. The park features a central landscaped park and the area invokes the feeling of a Mediterranean town center. It's home to many restaurants and the Boca Raton Museum of Art and an amphitheater was built for concerts and performances.

Boca has a strict development code. According to the code, no outdoor car dealerships are allowed in the municipality and no billboards are permitted in city limits. McDonald's was forced to subdue their Golden Arches due to the code requirements. As a result, major thoroughfares sport lush and verdant landscaping in lieu of billboards.

Boca Raton Today

Boca Raton covers a total area of 29.1 square miles. Like most south Florida cities, Boca Raton has a water table that does not permit building basements. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, Boca Raton has a total population of 84,392 and 44,539 households, of which, 17.4% were vacant as a result of the recent economic downturn. According to a 2007 estimate, the median income for a household in the city was $67,531, and the median income for a family was $92,057.

Affluence in Housing

Boca Raton is known for its affluent social community and high income demographic. According to Forbes, Boca Raton has three of the ten most expensive gated communities in the country. The Royal Palm Yacht and Country Club holds the #1 spot, The Sanctuary takes #6, and Le Lac comes in at the #8 spot.

Not surprisingly, Boca is home to a plethora of condo and planned development communities, along with their associated golf courses. Many of these affluent communities are large enough to be designated as census-designated places, including Boca Del Mar and Boca Pointe, geographically in Central Boca Raton, and Avalon at Boca Raton, Boca Falls, Boca Winds, Cimarron, Hamptons at Boca Raton, Mission Bay, Loggers' Run, The Polo Club Boca Raton, Sandalfoot Cove, and Whisper Walk as West Boca Raton. On November 2, 2004, the voters of the Via Verde Association, Waterside, Deerhurst Association (Boca South), Marina Del Mar Association, Rio Del Mar Association (both originally Boca Del Mar communities), and Heatherwood of Boca Raton Condominium Association approved annexation into the Boca Raton city limits, increasing the city land area to 29.6 square miles.

Like most other South Florida communities, Boca Raton was hit hard by the recent economic housing crisis, so much so that many cannot afford to buy there. In response city administrators worked to create a "workforce housing" plan to help enable policemen, teachers and other civil servants to afford homes in the community.