Our Towns

It's urban and rural, wealthy and middle-class, bustling and laid-back, traditional and edgy, conservative and liberal, sophisticated and naïve. But for all its contradictions, the Central Florida communities known collectively as "Orlando" are unmistakably family-friendly and unabashedly welcoming to newcomers.

Despite its outsized international profile, Orlando proper is, in fact, a medium-sized municipality of fewer than 200,000 people. The Orlando Metropolitan Statistical Area, however, encompasses 1.7 million people throughout Orange, Seminole, Osceola and Lake counties. Like the region's best-known city, the dozens of communities encompassing the metro area boast charms all their own.

In Central Florida you'll find picture-postcard villages where tree-shaded streets are lined with antique shops and Victorian homes, farm towns where citrus packing plants still crate and ship delicious oranges, and modern mixed-use developments built around resort-style amenities.

Yes, the elaborate tourist attractions garner the international attention. But all present-day visitors need to do is look out the airplane window to see what originally drew settlers to Central Florida: all those lakes.

Indeed, the Orlando area's lakes-as well as its rivers and streams-have played an integral part in the development of the region dating back to the 1800s, when early settlers arrived here via steamboat after traversing the northern-flowing St. Johns River from Jacksonville.

Today, those shimmering bodies of water-some huge, some tiny and many interconnected by manmade canals or natural tributaries-provide some of the choicest real estate in all of Florida. Whether it's the Butler-Tibet Chain of Lakes in south Orlando, home to pro athletes and golfing legends, or aptly named Orlando" target="_blank">Lake County, with more than 1,900 named bodies of water, Central Florida is a water-worshipper's mecca.

While most lakes are rimmed with homes and towering cypress trees, others are dedicated to public recreation-waterskiing and wakeboarding, kayaking and competitive rowing-and many offer surprisingly good fishing.

Certainly, the key to savoring Orlando beyond the theme parks is simple: look for the lakes. While Florida's largest landlocked city might fall short when it comes to gorgeous beaches (but hey, it's only an hour's drive to the Atlantic) it's long on freshwater attractions.

NAMED BY THE BARD?

At the heart of Orlando sits Lake Eola Park, a 20-acre urban escape which, along with the neighborhoods around it, symbolizes what has come to be known as "The City Beautiful."

At one end of the lake is a monument honoring one Orlando Reeves, a soldier said to have been killed by Seminole Indians while guarding nearby Fort Gatlin during the Second Seminole War. During the city's centennial celebration in 1975, however, researchers scoured War Department records and found no record of Reeves.

Others have speculated that Judge James Gamble Speer, an early pioneer, was responsible for the city's moniker. Speer, an aficionado of Shakespeare, may have borrowed the name Orlando from a character in As You Like It.

We're pulling for Speer, since the Shakespeare connection dovetails nicely with one of the city's stellar events, the Orlando-University of Central Florida Shakespeare Festival which, for six weeks each spring, takes to the stage in the park's 950-seat amphitheater.

Then, no sooner has the curtain dropped on the Bard than the giddy Orlando International Fringe Festival launches its annual 10-day run. Modeled after a similar alternative theater-fest in Edinburgh, Scotland, the Fringe presents the sublime, the ridiculous and everything in-between using state-of-the-art venues in Loch Haven Park, a cultural focal point that also houses the Orlando Museum of Art and the Orlando Science Center.

More up-tempo pursuits lie within easy walking distance. The one-mile footpath around Lake Eola skirts past Thornton Park, a newly gentrified neighborhood boasting some of the city's best restaurants.

Downtown's main drag, Orange Avenue, runs just two blocks west of Lake Eola and, after the bankers and attorneys check out for the day, it's home to a kinetic nightclub scene.

While it's inescapably true that some of these clubs have served as Petri dishes for a number of homogenized pop acts- 'N-Sync and the Backstreet Boys are among the groups that were launched in Orlando-a typical night serves up surprisingly diverse entertainment options.

THE BOOM CONTINUES

Given the region's charms, it's no surprise that rapid growth is continuing. In fact, areas once considered to be on the periphery are increasingly being drawn into Orlando's orbit.

For example, to the northeast, Volusia County, home to world-famous Daytona Beach, is a growth hotspot. And to the southwest, once-sleepy Polk County is rapidly sprouting subdivisions where orange groves once thrived.

How hot is the region's housing market? While triple-whammy hurricanes put the brakes on building during much of last August and September, the four-county area still notched almost 26,000 housing starts in 2004, slightly exceeding 2003's record pace, according to Orlando-based Fishkind & Associates, a research firm that tracks Florida's economic trends.

And interest rates, while rising, remain relatively low. Although mortgage bankers had predicted the average rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate loan would reach at least 6.5 percent by the end of 2004, the rate was still hovering at slightly less than 6 percent at press time.

Demand clearly isn't a problem, but supply is. For builders, many of whom are now faced with backlogs, such basics as concrete and shingles are in short supply while the labor is increasingly tight. For realtors, the number of existing homes on the market at any given time has fallen to as few as 4,100, about half the number typically available during the late 1990s.

Clearly, the laws of supply and demand dictate higher home prices on the horizon, which is as compelling an argument as any to buy now. But with so much activity going on in so many places, where should a newcomer look?

We can get you started. Following is a county-by-county primer, in which you'll find everything from new master-planned developments to funky historic districts.

Undoubtedly, there's a neighborhood, and a home, perfect for you and your family.