Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

I went to Florida to see Disney World. What I found looked like a dying country

Florida used to be where Americans came to die. Now it smells of national decay

issue 18 February 2017
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I’ve always sensed a whiff of sadness in Florida, perhaps because so many people go there to die. Although not us, obviously, because we went for Disney World. Still, terminality is in the air. In Mafia films, Florida is always, literally, the last resort: the place the wheezing hood heads after he’s failed in the Bronx and Vegas and is now unwittingly destined for a one-way trip on a fishing boat.

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