So, Michael Crichton wrote plots about the dangers of amusement parks (Westworld), the underwater (Sphere), wildlife parks (Jurassic Park) and airliners (Airframe)
…did the Florida tourism industry do something to hurt him?
Now appreciating that the ‘80s Florida thing wasn’t from Miami Vice, that and “yacht rock” were responding to a real period vogue, like the late '70s Colorado thing or maybe '90s Seattle. Like, this:
was from 1982 (Miami Vice debuted '84), released as a single with the duh-its-about-cocaine White Line Fever on the B-side
Recalling that retirement communities form in low cost-of-living areas without jobs for every service-consuming resident, that bit in the original Portlandia “Dream of the 90s” song about how Portland was “where young people go to retire” was dead on for 2011
Worth noting this is basically why Florida has been such a retirement paradise – there’s never been any primary economic purpose to Florida, so there was no huge call to go there and do anything (well, citrus growers, I guess).
Tourism, too, is a mechanism by which people inhabit and spend money in an area but do not fill jobs there.
Now that it’s bootstrapped its way up, Florida’s appeal is its sizeable population, either to provide goods and services to, or to serve as a large potential employee pool for your generic office- or manufacturing park small business.