Sarasota is a city that is located in Sarasota County, situated on the southwestern coast of Florida. It is north of Fort Myers and south of the Tampa Bay Area. The current official limits of Sarasota include a number of barrier islands located between the Gulf of Mexico and the bay, as well as Sarasota Bay itself.
The islands that separate the bay from the gulf close to the city – which are referred to as keys – include Siesta Key and Lido Key, both of which are famous for the high quality of their sandy beaches. The keys that make up the boundary of Sarasota today include Lido Key, Otter Key, Bird Key, portions of Siesta Key (formerly known as Sarasota Key), St Armands Key and Coon Key. At one point Siesta Key and all of Longboat Key were thought of as being a part of Sarasota, and contemporaneous references to them can be confusing to outsiders. The biggest key that separates the bay from the gulf is Longboat Key, although the new county line of 1921 now evenly divides this.
As of five years, ago back in 2007, Sarasota had a population of 52,488 people, according to the US Census Bureau. Designated as a certified local government 26 years ago, back in 1986, Sarasota is the seat of Sarasota County and a principal city in the Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area known as Bradenton-Sarasota-Venice. Sarasota is also one of the communities included in the federal mandated two-county Metropolitan Planning Organization, which includes all of the Manatee and Sarasota counties and the chairs of that organization’s three elements, which belong to the regional planning organization featuring eight counties in western central Florida. It was an elementary school in Sarasota that President George W Bush was visiting on 11th September 2001 when he was told about the terrorist attack on New York City’s World Trade Center.
One of the biggest contributors to Sarasota’s attraction to those people elsewhere in the United States was Owen Burns. Burns had decided to move to Sarasota because of its famous fishing and he stayed there for the rest of his life, becoming the city’s biggest landowner and also founding a bank, building mansions, bridges and landmark buildings, and even promoting the development of other businesses into the bargain. Burns was also responsible for the creation of novel developments, such as Burns Court, in order to attract tourists to the area. He simultaneously built commercial establishments in order to generate extra impetus into the expanding community.
The climate of Sarasota is humid subtropical, with mild winters, hot summers and high humidity all throughout the year. The city has a complete area of 25.9 square miles, 14.9 square miles of which is land and 11.0 square miles of which is water. The population of Sarasota has fallen slightly over the last decade – from 52,715 in 2000 to 51.917 in 2010 – implying a move away for many.
Jon Huser
