Hispanic growth was so pervasive that no county saw an increase of less than 30 percent in the population group. In one dramatic example, Osceola County, which encompasses Orlando's southern suburbs, nearly quadrupled its Hispanic population.

Hispanics now make up 17 percent of Florida's population, blacks 15 percent and white, non-Hispanics 65 percent - down from 73 percent just a decade ago.

Nowhere was this trend more evident than in South Florida: The Hispanic and black populations in both Miami-Dade and Broward counties grew. The white, non-Hispanic population did not; it remained virtually flat in Broward and plunged by 20 percent in Miami-Dade.

The force of change was especially strong in Broward, where the Hispanic population skyrocketed by 151 percent.

From Key West to the Georgia border, the census figures sketched a familiar portrait of explosive growth, with a multihued twist: unprecedented levels of diversity outside South Florida.

Since 1990, the Hispanic population statewide grew by 70 percent. Blacks surged at least 33 percent. White, non-Hispanics barely budged by comparison, rising only by about 10 percent.

The state as a whole grew by 24 percent, to nearly 16 million people.

The census numbers suggest that the growth was propelled in large part by immigration from Latin America and the black Caribbean, as well as from other parts of the United States, one expert said.

``Florida enjoys the best of both population growth trends, attracting large numbers of domestic immigrants as well as those from outside the country,'' said William Frey, a demographer at California's Milken Institute who has studied the state closely. ``You are probably attracting Hispanics both from the Northeast and the traditional Caribbean areas.''

SPREADING

Instead of concentrating in South Florida, long the state's main immigrant haven, they are now spreading across the state, Frey said, likely attracted by service jobs as well as traditional magnets such as recreation and retirement.

In fact, the census figures show that the Hispanic population actually grew more slowly in the four-county South Florida region - a still-robust rate of 51 percent - than it did across the state.

South Florida as a whole grew by nearly one million people since 1990. The region - Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties - climbed to 5,087,153, an increase of 23 percent.

The influx of Hispanics is especially pronounced in Central and agricultural Southwest Florida.

Orlando's Orange County saw a 159-percent increase in the Hispanic population, which now is nearly one in five people in the county. In Highlands County, northwest of Lake Okeechobee, the Hispanic population tripled to 12 percent of the total.

The data were culled by Census Bureau officials from last year's head count and will be used to redraw Florida's voting districts and help state legislators decide where to carve out two new congressional seats.

But the figures don't include estimates for people missed by last year's count, mostly minorities and the poor. Census officials estimate the count left out some 3.3 million people nationwide.

Race comparisons to 1990 are complicated this year because people filling out the census were able to choose more than one race for the first time, resulting in 63 possible race combinations. That makes it impossible, for instance, to tell precisely how much the black population grew.

But the numbers do provide the most detailed and reliable portrait of South Florida's population since the 1990 Census.

MIAMI-DADE NUMBERS

In Miami-Dade, the numbers show:

* A continuing rise in the number of Hispanics, who now make up 57 percent of the population, up from 49 percent in 1990. As the number of white, non-Hispanics fell, the black population grew at least 15 percent.

* Continued overall growth, as the total county population rose 16 percent to 2.25 million.

* Growth concentrated in the far-western suburbs, where Doral and Hialeah Gardens grew by 217 and 150 percent, respectively, and in the new condo canyons rising to the east in Sunny Isles Beach and Aventura, which grew by 30 percent and 64 percent.

* Near-total ethnic and racial make-overs in some areas. Twenty cities and unincorporated communities went from majority to minority white, non-Hispanic, including Coral Gables, Cutler Ridge and Kendall. And 15 cities and unincorporated communities went from minority to majority Hispanic, including Miami Springs, Homestead, Key Biscayne and Miami Beach.

North Miami is now a majority black city, going from 32 percent black in 1990 to at least 55 percent black in 2000.

There were some unexpected numbers that raised questions about the accuracy of the count. Built-out Hialeah, for example, grew by 20 percent, according to the census numbers, and Florida City saw a growth spurt of 35 percent, while booming Miami Beach lost 5 percent of its population. Miami's population was flat.

Miami-Dade County demographers said they believed there may have been an undercount of the Hispanic population.

``There may have been a Hispanic undercount, particularly in immigrant areas, and the total should have been higher overall,'' said Oliver Kerr, a county demographer. ``That means there would be more people in Miami and Miami Beach, and Hialeah would be even higher.''

In Broward County, the numbers showed substantial changes:

* Nearly every city in the county grew. The most dramatic change occurred in cities west of U.S. 441. Pembroke Pines, for instance, grew by 110 percent since 1990. Weston grew by 404 percent. Miramar was up 79 percent.

* The black population surged at least 72 percent while the number of white, non-Hispanics was essentially static.

* That black increase, together with the 151 percent rise in the Hispanic population, transformed Broward from an aging suburban county to an ethnically and racially diverse collage.

In 1990, there was a 42 percent chance that two randomly selected Broward residents would be ethnically or racially different from each other, an analysis of the census numbers shows. That increased to 61 percent in 2000.

Experts believe nearly all of Broward's growth is a result of some other place's loss.

``We think that 84 percent of Broward County's growth has been from migration,'' said June Nogle, a research demographer at the University of Florida's Bureau of Economic and Business Research. ``It could be from next door in Miami, or from another country.''

Herald staff writer William Yardley contributed to this report.

Like most of its schools, Sabal Palm Elementary was well under capacity, with a student body so overwhelmingly white that black kids had to be bused in.

Today all that has changed, dramatically and irrevocably.

During the past decade, newly released Census 2000 figures show, North Miami Beach has been transformed with a rapidity startling even in Miami-Dade County. White non-Hispanics, 54 percent of the population in 1990, are now a minority of 25 percent. Blacks and Hispanics predominate, respectively with 39 percent and 30 percent.

Yet that is only part of the story. At the same time, North Miami Beach has also undergone a youth revolution: Those black and Hispanic families, many immigrants, have brought with them thousands of children. It has forced school and city administrators to retool to meet increasing needs for classroom space, parks and recreational programs, and bilingual teachers and staff.

Yet the demographic turnover has occurred with an unusual degree of harmony.

``Everybody moves in and seems to jell,'' said Jacqueline H. Smith, the first black member elected to the city council. ``They look after each other's kids. We share the fruits that grow in our yards. They just feel a camaraderie.''

In part, that is because the one-time retirement community has become a stepping-stone to the middle class for many like-minded immigrants, in particular Haitians looking to move up from Little Haiti and, increasingly, adjacent North Miami.

The diversity of new arrivals is striking. Interviews turn up North Miami Beach residents who came from Cuba and Colombia, from Jamaica and Trinidad. They have been joined by others from China, India and Pakistan. There is even a small but resurgent Orthodox Jewish population, including emigres from South America and Israel - and Miami Beach.

Many of them are first-time homeowners drawn to North Miami Beach by its attractive - and affordable - neighborhoods of single-family houses and good schools, and a city government reputed to be welcoming and efficiently run.

``It really appealed to us. It's simple living, not too expensive, but a little more upscale than Little Haiti,'' said Daphne Dominique, who moved to the city from Haiti after visiting relatives there.

Dominique, who has two children and is president of the PTA at JFK Middle School, said she cannot imagine living anywhere else: ``I love it that much,'' she said.

A drive down North Miami Beach's main drag, 163rd Street, and its other commercial arteries hints at the city's workaday diversity: Amid the usual assortment of fast-food joints, grand survivors such as Laurenzo's Italian Market and the Ham and Eggery thrive cheek-by-jowl with Korean and Chinese restaurants, Indian markets, Kosher butchers and a Kosher Mexican restaurant.

City leaders and residents alike contend that one thing sets North Miami Beach apart from the rest of immigrant-heavy Miami-Dade: People of different races and nationalities are thoroughly intermixed in its neighborhoods.

``I believe we are a shining example of what we should be,'' said longtime Mayor Jeffrey Mishcon.

Longtime residents trace North Miami Beach's transformation to the mid-1980s, when the city's retirees and empty-nesters began moving to the newly built condos of Aventura, Broward County and beyond, selling their homes to younger families. The trend accelerated in the 1990s, the 2000 Census figures indicate.

Tapping federal grants, the city revamped its main senior center, which is now geared primarily to children, and it now enrolls hundreds of children in five after-school programs, subsidized day care and a variety of sports programs. Just last month, it opened two new tot-lots in city parks. It has also added monthly town hall meetings in Creole and Spanish.

At Sabal Palm Elementary, enrollment ballooned from 550 mainly white, non-Hispanic children in the mid-90s to more than 900 children, predominantly black and Hispanic.

Because many students arrive speaking little or no English, longtime principal Gertrude Edelman assembled a bilingual and multi-ethnic staff - snagging her Haitian community outreach specialist, Delia Eugene, from behind the cafeteria steam table.

Edelman beefed up after-school tutoring, and added evening English classes for school parents. Last year, the school's scores in the Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test earned the school a solidly respectable `B' grade - proof, Edelman said, that in some ways North Miami Beach has not changed much.

``This school took a 180-degree turn,'' said Edelman, who retires this year and is lobbying superiors for her Cuban-American assistant to succeed her. ``But we've maintained high standards. We just went on our merry way, teaching school.''

METHODOLOGY

The Herald used computer programs and mapping software to compare 2000 U.S. Census data released Tuesday with 1990 data.

GIS (Geographic Information Systems) software was used to compute the 1990 population of areas that were part of other communities in 1990, like the cities of Pinecrest and Aventura. Where the Census bureau redrew boundaries significantly for unincorporated places like Kendall, comparable 1990 populations were also computed.

For mapping purposes, 1990 Census blocks were matched with 2000 tracts to provide uniform maps across the decade despite an ever-shifting geography of new development.

Computer programming and mapping in preparation for the data release and Tuesday's analysis were done by Database Manager Tim Henderson and Staff Writer Jason Grotto. Mapping enhancement was done by Deputy Graphics Editor Hiram Henriquez.

``I told her, `No, no, you watch, this will be part of a big suburb someday,' '' Varela says now, 17 years later. ``I didn't know how right I was going to be.''

Today, Varela's once-isolated house off 152nd Street and 152nd Avenue is surrounded by sprawling suburbia now known as West Kendall.

All around him, farm land has turned to development. Houses are everywhere. Strip malls line the streets. Warehouses, industrial plants and fast-food joints mark every crossroad.

And traffic? As fast as they lay down the asphalt, cars fill it.

It's a story repeated all over Miami-Dade County in the past decade: The once-bucolic western edges of the county have been transformed into jampacked centers of suburban life, complete with congestion, overwhelmed services and harried commuters.

The 2000 U.S. Census data released Tuesday confirms that development along the outer loop of Miami has wrapped the city in a horseshoe of urban sprawl - Aventura in the northeast, Doral and West Kendall to the west, curving east to the sleek high-rise condos of Brickell Avenue.

A few spots in Miami-Dade remain untouched by the building boom. Demographers say they find little evidence of growth in South Miami-Dade, and even less in inner-city neighborhoods such as Liberty City and Opa-locka, which lost population.

But for Varela, 58, recently named chairman of the West Kendall Community Council, witnessing the breakneck speed of change in his neighborhood from rural to suburban has been astonishing - and not always pleasant.

``I'm not against growth, but we've oversaturated our services. We don't have enough water for all the people. We're gridlocking on the roads. We've built faster than we could keep up with.''

He moved to West Kendall, he says, for ``peace and quiet.''

And now? ``We're wall-to-wall people.''

The census numbers show the population has grown 80 percent since 1990 - from 21,073 people to 38,034 people - in the area defined by the Census bureau as West Kendall.

For some, that's an attractive picture. The Rouse Company, a highly sought-after developer based in Maryland, is planning a massive commercial project on 158 acres in the area, to be called Kendall Town Center.

``There are more than enough people to support this project right now,'' said Ann E. Pope, development director. ``But right now, they have to travel east for a lot of their services.''

The company, noting the area's potential, optioned the property about five years ago. ``We've had our eye on that area for a while,'' Pope said. ``You look around and all you can see are rooftops.''

It's much the same in Doral, northwest of Miami International Airport. Its population has grown a staggering 217 percent in the last decade - from 6,438 people to 20,428.

For years, Doral was a small community without much growth. But land near the airport became increasingly sought after in the last 10 years, as barriers to international trade fell. The result? An explosion of growth in Doral.

``It used to be that Doral was a minimal growth community. Buildings were built on an as-needed basis,'' says Jesse Jones, a resident of Doral since 1985 and vice president of the influential West Dade Federation of Homeowner Associations.

``With the worldwide economy changing, the dynamics of land around the airport changed too,'' he says. ``Doral suddenly became a hot spot.''

And that's gotten attention even from the Archdiocese of Miami, which plans to open two new parishes in the next few years: one in Doral and the other in Weston, in Broward County.

``We try to get ahead of the curve. We buy property and we may not do anything with that land for five to seven years,'' said Mary Ross Agosta, communications director for the diocese. ``But Doral is one area we anticipate we'll need a new parish soon.''

But the growing pains can be sharp.

Take, for example, opening day at the Dolphin Mall, just south of Doral. When the mall opened March 1, traffic ground to a halt along Northwest 107th Avenue and snaked for miles in both directions. One would-be shopper, who lived 20 blocks away, waited in traffic for two hours before giving up.

``People have to start looking outside their own property lines,'' Jones warns.

In Aventura - 3.2 square miles of waterfront high-rises, townhouses and the upscale Aventura Mall - City Manager Eric Soroka says the city has grown from 17,000 when it was incorporated in 1995 to between 23,000 and 24,000. The census shows 64 percent growth since 1990.

``I think we've done a good job of keeping up with the growth in terms of services. The only exception is the traffic. We've done everything we can to handle that too, but at some point, you just have to live with it,'' he said.

From County Hall to the Capitol, politicians will use newly released 2000 Census data to redraw district lines in an exercise that can pit personal ambition against rational ways of dividing a state or county.

County commissioners and state senators alike, even those recently elected, will have to run for office next year in the new districts drawn this winter.

The biggest prizes are the two new congressional seats.

Florida, with a population of 16 million, will claim 25 congressional seats, with 640,000 people in each district. Their locations will be decided by state legislators, but are likely to be in Central and South Florida.

The counties around Orlando have grown by nearly 500,000 people since 1990, the Tampa Bay area more than 200,000 - numbers that could contribute to a new Central Florida district.

South Florida's growth - 952,000 more people counted in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties in 2000 than 10 years before - provides the base for another new district. It could be predominantly Hispanic, if the region's Republicans have their way.

``That is the million-dollar question,'' says state Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, R-Miami, the House chairman of congressional redistricting.

Díaz-Balart himself may seek a new South Florida seat, but he's not alone in eyeing a seat that could appeal to others, including Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas.

Suburban sprawl and shrinking inner cities complicate the job of drawing the new lines:

* One of Florida's two Hispanic members of Congress, Miami Republican Lincoln Díaz-Balart, might lose supporters from an overwhelmingly Hispanic district to help craft a third. His West Dade district, 77.5 percent Hispanic, has grown so much that he will shed 150,000 people when new lines are drawn.

But Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen will need more than 40,000 people added to her urban, East Dade district to reach the target of 640,000.

* Court rulings will prevent the Legislature from diluting the voting strength of black Floridians amassed in three of the oddest shaped districts. These include Rep. Carrie Meek's district snaking from Carol City south along U.S. 1 to Florida City, and Rep. Alcee Hastings' meandering district from Broward County north to St. Lucie. Both are Democrats.

EXPANDED BOUNDARIES

But the boundaries of Meek's inner-city district must be expanded to find more than 60,000 new people to meet the new target of 640,000.

By comparison, the suburban districts of Reps. Peter Deutsch, D-Fort Lauderdale, and Rob Wexler, D-Boca Raton, also Democrats, have grown so much combined that they can shed 300,000 people and still meet the new target size.

* Anyone with designs on a new seat in South Florida must come to terms with Central and North Florida power brokers who control the Legislature.

SEAT DREAMS

Sen. Dan Webster, R-Orlando, who oversees reapportionment in the Senate, says Republican senators - Ginny Browne-Waite of Spring Hill and Jim Horne of Orange Park - are interested in pulling a seat to Gulf Coast or Northeast Florida, and the Speaker of the House, Tom Feeney of Oviedo, wants a Central Florida seat.

When he envisions new seats, Webster says: ``I tend to think Central Florida, but also I think that North Florida is more than was anticipated'' in growth.

After hearings across the state this fall, lawmakers plan to convene their 2002 session early, in January, to draw lines.

The Legislature has gone through this before. But local governments across South Florida, some only recently divided into districts, face a bracing political challenge:

* The 13 districts of Miami-Dade's County Commission were court-drawn after a 1992 legal challenge to an old system of electing commissioners at-large. This time, the commission will draw lines, and a consultant may be hired, Assistant County Attorney Murray Greenberg says. ``There's no secret,'' he says. ``The west [of Dade] has grown.''

Swollen commission districts such as Joe Martinez's in West Kendall and Miriam Alonso's in Miami Lakes must shed voters to equalize others, Greenberg and county elections supervisor David Leahy say.

TIME FRAME

Their goal is to draw new lines by New Year's Eve, because the county has a six-month residency requirement for qualifying in June of 2002 to run in any new districts.

* Broward's County Commission only recently changed to single-member districts, in 2000, and expanded from seven to nine seats. With a burgeoning Hispanic population, commissioners and School Board members will face pressure to create a district favorable for Hispanic candidates as well as pressure for a new black seat. Republicans also want a seat favoring the GOP on boards dominated by Democrats.

Herald staff writers Karl Ross and Beth Reinhard contributed to this report.

The famed 226-foot Citrus Tower in Clermont now commemorates a bygone era, rising above former citrus groves in Lake County that have become booming residential developments. And 35 miles away, on the other side of Orlando in Orange County, a new television tower is being prepared by Spanish-language Univision to bring local news and expanded programming to the fastest-growing population group - Hispanics, who are Florida's largest minority group.

According to 2000 Census figures, nearly one in five Orange County residents is Hispanic - up from one in 10 in 1990. Hispanics also made big population gains in nearby Tampa area, as well as in the vegetable and citrus counties near Lake Okeechobee.

In the Orlando area, more than half the Hispanics are Puerto Rican, members of the community say. But Orange County's Hispanic population is diverse, coming from many different countries, said Jose Fernandez, who heads the Hispanic Business Initiative Fund in Orlando that helps Hispanics become a force in the business community.

``They have the technical skills, but they need the guidance in how to do it in this community,'' Fernandez said. ``We help them deal with payroll, marketing, language, acculturation.''

The fund's base is growing. When the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce opened in 1993 it had 75 members. Today it has more than 1,000.

Hispanics are fueling what continues to be a high growth rate statewide, with the state's population increasing three million people to 16 million.

Census figures show that over the past decade the largest number of new residents settled in three South Florida counties, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach. But the four-county area around Orlando has nearly 420,000 new residents and a growth rate of 34 percent over the past decade. That's the highest regional growth rate in the state.

Close behind is the Southwest Florida region, from Sarasota to Naples, with just over 297,000 new residents and a 32 percent growth rate.

The third-fastest growth area outside South Florida was along the upper Atlantic Coast from St. Augustine to Jacksonville, where there was an increase of 21 percent or about 166,000 new residents.

Unlike many states in the North and upper Midwest, no Florida county lost population. Monroe had the smallest gain at 2 percent.

With the exception of Collier and Osceola counties, most of the fastest growing counties were ones with small populations. Flagler County, with 74 percent growth, still has only 49,832 people. But it is nestled in the bedroom/retirement counties that surround Jacksonville.

Sumter County, north of Tampa, population 53,345, jumped 69 percent, helped largely by aggressive business and industry marketing.

Tiny, bucolic, Wakulla County, a bedroom area for Tallahassee, grew 61 percent.

What triggered the huge boom north and west of Orlando? Weather: the crop-killing freeze in December, 1989 that laid waste to thousands of acres of verdant citrus. After the ``Freeze of the Century'' killed orange and grapefruit trees by the hundreds of thousands, farmers were forced to sell, opening up a land rush.

Counted among the newcomers around Clermont are people like Ruben and Naomi Torres and Carl and Virginia Duke, all with roots in Miami.

The Dukes, who spent most of their professional lives in Miami, retired to Lake County largely because their son lives there. ``We love it because we love to see children in the neighborhood,'' said Duke, 70, who spent a lifetime selling biscuits and crackers for Nabisco. The Dukes' six-month-old home at The Legends sits on what once was an orange grove.

Just down the hill is Lost Creek Elementary School where Naomi Torres, 45, works as a clerk. A freeze didn't influence her family's move, but another kind of weather - Hurricane Andrew - encouraged them to join other South Floridians who have migrated north. Andrew wiped out Naomi Torres' parents' house in Homestead and damaged their own Cutler Ridge home.

Ruben Torres, 46, a letter carrier born in Puerto Rico, and his wife, with their children, Linda, 18 and son Alex, 9, moved to Lake County three years ago. ``It's a better environment for him to grow up in,'' Linda Torres, said nodding toward Alex.

Univision took over its new television tower - scheduled to begin operation next week - because of families like the Torreses. Hispanic TV households are growing at nearly 11 times the rate of non-Hispanic TV households in the Orlando area, said Antonio Guernica, Univision general manager in Orlando.

Guernica's vision of his station is like the view many Hispanics now have of their lives in Central Florida: ``We see ourselves as a player now, not a niche station.''

Newly released Census 2000 figures show that Hendry - immediately west of Palm Beach County - is now 40 percent Hispanic, around 45 percent white non-Hispanic, and 15 percent black. In 1990, by contrast, white non-Hispanics made up 59 percent of its population.

According to a commonly used measure of diversity, there is now a 76 percent chance that two randomly chosen Hendry residents will be of different ethnic or racial backgrounds.

The diversity measure demonstrates how thoroughly the state's booming Hispanic population has transformed the face of Florida, from urban centers such Orlando's Orange County - in a tie for fourth place - to rural areas around Lake Okeechobee and beyond. Every one of Florida's 67 counties became more diverse during the 1990s.

``Everybody's aware of it,'' said Easton Burchard, a Hendry County native and its chief building official. ``The school system is the most obvious place. The last three or four years, the homecoming king and queen were Hispanic. That's just kind of a little measurement of this.''

While Miami-Dade's diversity index remained essentially static, Broward County had one of the biggest leaps in the state during the decade, from 14th in 1990 to seventh in 2000.

Miami-Dade, the state's perennial diversity leader, has an index of 73, only slightly higher than its index of 71 in 1990, and good enough only for a tie for second with Hardee County, another Southwest Florida agricultural stalwart. Not far behind is Hardee neighbor DeSoto County, which is tied with Orange and its neighbor to the south, Osceola County, where the Hispanic population quadrupled since 1990.

SHARP INCREASE

Diversity rose sharply in Broward and Palm Beach counties, where both the Hispanic and black populations grew, in large part as a result of immigrants moving north from Miami-Dade or directly from abroad. Palm Beach ranked 14th in diversity.

The least diverse county in the state: Citrus, a largely agricultural enclave north of Tampa on the Gulf Coast. Others low on the diversity scale were the affluent retiree havens of Sarasota County and Charlotte County, populated mostly by working-class retirees.

Charlotte is a unique case, said County Administrator Jan Winters. Its main city, Port Charlotte, was built from scratch in the late 1960s and 1970s by a major developer who sold lots cheaply to Northern working-class retirees.

``Nothing existed here, just swampland,'' he said. ``We were completely artificial. If we had been the more natural community that grew organically, we would have the normal diversity everyone else has. Gradually over time, we will.''

The explanation for Sarasota's low diversity is simpler, Winters speculated: Most minorities can't afford to live there.

``I surely don't think it's a conscious decision. It's happenstance,'' he said.

More telling are the cases of Collier and Palm Beach counties. There the wealth and homogeneous populations of the seaside towns of Naples and Palm Beach are counterbalanced by inland agricultural areas that draw large numbers of black and Hispanic farmworkers - Immokalee in Collier and Belle Glade in Palm Beach.

In Collier, which overall grew by 65 percent, the number of Hispanics swelled by 138 percent, to 20 percent of the county population - partly a result, county officials said, of high demand for workers from the service industry in Naples and the tomato growers in Immokalee.

That makes Collier a microcosm of the state.

``You will see Hispanics in the workforce everywhere,'' said county spokeswoman Jean Merritt. ``It's been hard to find workers, and that's helped increase the population.''

BETTER COUNTING

Merritt also attributes the increase in the Hispanic population to another factor: better counting. Worried about a potential undercount, the county spent $150,000 to ensure its minority population was counted, instituting public meetings and recruiting community members to persuade reluctant immigrants to fill out their Census forms.

The tourism and service industries were likely the chief driving force behind the Hispanic and minority growth in Central Florida.

But one expert cautioned that behind the state's growing diversity is the reality of low income for many of those recently arrived Floridians.

`LOW-PAYING JOBS'

``Tourism in Central Florida is growing very fast, but these are very low-paying jobs,'' said David Lenze, an economist at the University of Florida. ``For immigrants who are just getting started, however, it's a wonderful opportunity, and the numbers are showing that.''

In Hendry, the growth in the Hispanic population coincided with U.S. Sugar's decision to shift great swaths of land from sugar cane to more labor-intensive citrus production, Burchard said. A greater variety of crops has also meant that many former migrant workers have decided to stay put, he said.

Recognizing that prosperity depended on ready labor, the county has welcomed the workers, building more than 100 affordable homes for them since the mid-1990s, said Burchard, who is also director of the area housing commission.

``We're nowhere near where we need to be, but we're constructing them as fast as we can,'' Burchard said. ``The whole community is proud that we're making every effort to accommodate these folks as they move here.''

DIVERSITY INDEX

A ``diversity index'' developed by USA Today and the University of North Carolina uses population figures to determine the probability that any two people chosen at random from a given Census area are of different races or ethnicities.

County 2000 1990

Hendry 76 64

Hardee 73 55

Miami-Dade 73 71

DeSoto 65 45

Orange 65 46

Osceola 65 37

Broward 61 42

Hillsborough 59 45

Gadsden 58 53

Hamilton 57 53

Okeechobee 56 43

Glades 55 45

Madison 54 51

Duval 53 44

Jefferson 52 51

Leon 51 43

Palm Beach 50 37

Collier 49 36

Alachua 48 41

Jackson 47 43

Escambia 46 40

Lafayette 46 35

Polk 46 33

St. Lucie 45 36

Seminole 45 31

Union 45 42

Highlands 44 30

Liberty 43 34

Putnam 43 36

Bradford 40 37

Calhoun 39 30

Monroe 39 33

Sumter 38 32

Taylor 38 33

Columbia 37 33

Manatee 37 25

Gulf 36 33

Lee 36 23

Marion 36 29

Franklin 35 24

Okaloosa 35 28

Suwannee 34 29

Volusia 34 27

Washington 34 31

Indian River 32 23

Pinellas 32 21

Bay 31 27

Brevard 31 24

Lake 31 24

Levy 31 27

Baker 30 28

Flagler 30 25

Martin 30 24

Clay 29 19

Wakulla 27 25

Walton 25 18

Dixie 23 19

Gilchrist 22 20

Hernando 22 15

Holmes 22 14

Pasco 22 13

Santa Rosa 22 15

Nassau 21 22

St. Johns 21 22

Sarasota 21 14

Charlotte 20 14

Citrus 14 10

FLORIDA COUNTIES

The racial group percentage changes do not include people who described themselves as being more than one race. Iif they did, the percentages could be slightly higher for blacks and white, non-Hispanics.

Note: In some editions of Wednesday's Herald, an inaccurate version of this chart appeared because of a mistake in transferring Census data.

2000 POP HISP WNH BLACK MULT

Alachua 217,955 6% 70% 19% 2%

% change from '90 20% 84% 12% 22% -

Baker 22,259 2% 83% 14% 1%

20% 110% 19% 12% -

Bay 148,217 2% 83% 11% 2%

17% 59% 14% 15% -

Bradford 26,088 2% 75% 21% 1%

16% 46% 12% 19% -

Brevard 476,230 5% 84% 8%

2% 19% 79% 14% 27% -

Broward 1,623,018 17% 58% 21% 3%

29% 151% 0% 72% -

Calhoun 13,017 4% 78% 16% 1%

18% 317% 11% 24% -

Charlotte 141,627 3% 90% 4% 1%

28% 69% 24% 47% -

Citrus 118,085 3% 93% 2% 1%

26% 85% 23% 27% -

Clay 140,814 4% 85% 7% 2%

33% 119% 25% 71% -

Collier 251,377 20% 74% 5% 2%

65% 138% 49% 63% -

Columbia 56,513 3% 78% 17% 1%

33% 150% 30% 25% -

Dade 2,253,362 57% 21% 20% 4%

16% 35% -20% 15% -

DeSoto 32,209 25% 61% 13% 1%

35% 251% 11% 10% -

Dixie 13,827 2% 88% 9% 1%

31% 159% 27% 35% -

Duval 778,879 4% 64% 28% 2%

16% 84% 3% 32% -

Escambia 294,410 3% 71% 21% 2%

12% 58% 5% 20% -

Flagler 49,832 5% 84% 9% 1%

74% 101% 68% 86% -

Franklin 11,057 2% 80% 16% 1%

23% 312% 14% 62% -

Gadsden 45,087 6% 36% 57% 1%

10% 189% -1% 9% -

Gilchrist 14,437 3% 89% 7% 1%

49% 169% 48% 22% -

Glades 10,576 15% 69% 11% 2%

39% 163% 29% 21% -

Gulf 13,332 2% 79% 17% 2%

16% 214% 14% 4% -

Hamilton 13,327 6% 55% 38% 1%

22% 187% 15% 18% -

Hardee 26,938 36% 55% 8% 2%

38% 111% 7% 117% -

Hendry 36,210 40% 44% 15% 3%

40% 149% 5% 24% -

Hernando 130,802 5% 89% 4% 1% 29% 122% 25% 37% -

Highlands 87,366 12% 76% 9% 2%

28% 201% 16% 19% -

Hillsborough 998,948 18% 63% 15% 3%

20% 68% 4% 35% -

Holmes 18,564 2% 89% 7% 1%

18% 103% 13% 54% -

Indian River 112,947 7% 83% 8% 1%

25% 173% 19% 21% -

Jackson 46,755 3% 69% 27% 1%

13% 40% 9% 15% -

Jefferson 12,902 2% 58% 38% 1%

14% 123% 21% 1% -

Lafayette 7,022 9% 75% 14% 1%

26% 184% 16% 29% -

Lake 210,528 6% 84% 8% 1%

38% 174% 33% 23% -

Lee 440,888 10% 82% 7% 2

% 32% 179% 22% 31% -

Leon 239,452 4% 64% 29% 2%

24% 78% 11% 50% -

Levy 34,450 4% 83% 11% 1%

33% 173% 30% 18% -

Liberty 7,021 5% 75% 18% 1%

26% 193% 17% 32% -

Madison 18,733 3% 55% 40% 1%

13% 160% 10% 9% -

Manatee 264,002 9% 81% 8% 1%

25% 160% 15% 32% -

Marion 258,916 6% 80% 12% 1%

33% 166% 28% 20% -

Martin 126,731 8% 86% 5% 1%

26% 101% 21% 10% -

Monroe 79,589 16% 77% 5% 2%

2% 31% -3% -10% -

Nassau 57,663 2% 89% 8% 1%

31% 82% 33% -1% -

Okaloosa 170,498 4% 81% 9% 3%

19% 65% 13% 19% -

Okeechobee 35,910 19% 72% 8% 2%

21% 91% 7% 50% -

Orange 896,344 19% 58% 18% 3%

32% 159% 4% 58% -

Osceola 172,493 29% 60% 7% 4%

60% 294% 18% 115% -

Palm Beach 1,131,184 12% 71% 14% 2%

31% 111% 17% 45% -

Pasco 344,765 6% 90% 2% 1%

23% 111% 17% 31% -

Pinellas 921,482 5% 83% 9% 2%

8% 113% 1% 25% -

Polk 483,924 9% 75% 14% 2%

19% 177% 9% 21% -

Putnam 70,423 6% 75% 17% 1%

8% 147% 4% 1% -

Santa Rosa 117,743 3% 89% 4% 2%

44% 143% 39% 53% -

Sarasota 325,957 4% 90% 4% 1%

17% 140% 13% 13% -

Seminole 365,196 11% 75% 10% 2%

27% 119% 15% 43% -

St. Johns 123,135 3% 89% 6% 1%

47% 71% 48% 6% -

St. Lucie 192,695 8% 74% 15% 2%

28% 164% 20% 20% -

Sumter 53,345 6% 78% 14% 1%

69% 340% 64% 44% -

Suwannee 34,844 5% 81% 12% 1%

30% 308% 27% 7% -

Taylor 19,256 2% 77% 19% 1%

13% 70% 8% 19% -

Union 13,442 4% 72% 23% 2%

31% 42% 29% 29% -

Volusia 443,343 7% 82% 9% 1%

20% 96% 14% 23% -

Wakulla 22,863 2% 85% 12% 1%

61% 434% 59% 43% -

Walton 40,601 2% 87% 7% 2%

46% 261% 41% 50% -

Washington 20,973 2% 80% 14% 2%

24% 168% 21% 17% -

WHITE NON-HISPANICS

Because of an error made in transferring Census data analysis numbers to charts, The Herald ran inaccurate percentages for the changes in the white non-Hispanic populations of South Florida's cities and unincorporated neighborhoods. Here are the correct percentages:

Broward: Coconut Creek, 32; Cooper City, 20; Coral Springs, 18; Dania 51; Davie, 37; Deerfield Beach, 26; Fort Lauderdale, -9; Hallandale, -10; Hillsboro Beach, 23; Hollywood, -10; Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, -18; Lauderdale Lakes, -49; Lauderhill, -37; Lazy Lake, 0; Lighthouse Point, 0; Margate, -2; Miramar, -41; North Lauderdale, -37; Oakland Park, -14; Parkland, 251; Pembroke Park, -42; Pembroke Pines, 36; Plantation, 1; Pompano Beach, -1; Sea Ranch Lakes, 112; Sunrise, -8; Tamarac, -3; Weston, 306; Wilton Manors, -7.

Miami-Dade: Aventura, 35; Bal Harbour, -11; Bay Harbor Islands, -21; Biscayne Park, -24; Carol City, -37; Coral Gables, -5; Country Club, -30; Cutler, -7; Cutler Ridge, -26; Doral, 71; El Portal, -54; Florida City, -56; Golden Beach, 7; Goulds, -16; Hialeah, -11; Hialeah Gardens, 34; Homestead, -35; Indian Creek, -17; Kendale Lakes, -29; Kendall, -22; Kendall West, -4; Key Biscayne, 1; Medley, -27; Miami, -2; Miami Beach, -20; Miami Lakes, -17, Miami Shores, -23; Miami Springs, -30; Naranja, -84; North Bay Village, -13; North Miami, -50; North Miami Beach, -47; Opa-locka, -53; Pinecrest, -12; Richmond Heights, -33; Richmond West, 76; Scott Lake, -70; South Miami, -12; Sunny Isles, -6; Surfside, -7; Sweetwater, -1; Tamiami, 4; Virginia Gardens, -36; Westchester, -19; West Miami, -22; West Perrine, -50.

But for the city's mayor, that number still falls short of capturing the full population - and the full potential for federal dollars tied to census numbers.

``The census takers tried very hard in Hialeah,'' Mayor Raul Martinez said Wednesday, a day after the new population figures were released. ``But there are a lot of people who just don't want to give information to the government.''

Martinez, like some others in South Florida, believes the U.S. Census Bureau missed thousands of people in its once-a-decade head count.

``We did better than last time, but we're nowhere near to counting every single person,'' said Florida NAACP President Adora Obi Nweze, a Miami-Dade resident.

South Florida demographers say they believe the count was a substantial improvement over the 1990 tally, although they agree no census is ever 100 percent accurate.

Surveys after the 1990 Census showed 4 percent of Miami-Dade's population and almost 2 percent of Broward residents were not counted.

In 2000, the bureau estimates it undercounted the national population by 3.3 million people. It has not released any state or local estimates.

But a Democrat-backed group, the Presidential Members of the U.S. Census Monitoring Board, conducted its own calculations and concluded Florida was undercounted by about 209,000 people. The group says it used the same methods as the census does when calculating undercounts.

In a statement released late Wednesday, Acting Census Bureau Director William Barron questioned the validity of the group's numbers.

``It appears that both the population counts and the methodology used to calculate [the numbers] are seriously flawed,'' Barron said.

He said the ``most accurate data available'' has already been released by the Census.

In the case of Hialeah - where the Census Bureau ordered a recount last year of 63,000 improperly filled out census forms - Martinez believes the final count missed up to 10,000 people.

Most of those, he says, were immigrants without legal documentation, or people who had built extra apartments at the backs of their houses and didn't want the government to find out. Census statisticians believe there may be as many as 5.5 million undocumented workers in the U.S.

``They can't understand that now they've shortchanged the budget for the next 10 years,'' Martinez said. ``I can't blame the census; I can only blame the people who wouldn't fill out their census forms.''

The census numbers are used to draw new voting-district lines, which can help boost minority representation. The population figures also are used to help apportion more than $180 billion in federal grants to local governments.

``Some people say the census numbers are about politics,'' said Martinez, ``but to me, it's all about the money.''

He said Hialeah may join Miami-Dade and Los Angeles in a federal court fight, trying to force federal officials to statistically adjust the census data to minimize the undercount.

Overall, though, South Florida demographers were upbeat about the 2000 figures. Most found new population counts to be more accurate than in 1990, although they believed there will always be a certain number of people missed by census takers.

``We know it's better than the last census,'' said Oliver Kerr, a Miami-Dade demographer. ``We don't know what the undercount is yet, but it seems logical to me that it will be higher among minorities and new immigrants, and Miami has lots of those.''

In Broward, where the traditionally undercounted Hispanic population skyrocketed 151 percent in a decade, demographers also waited for more information on the undercount. ``I think the numbers came closer this time than they did in the '90s,'' said demographer Bill Leonard. ``Beyond that, we just don't know.''

Nweze said the bureau's more-intensive effort to reach minorities helped increase return rates in 2000. But it wasn't always enough to surmount the barriers of language and suspicion, she said.

``The challenge we have is to translate filling out that census form into things people can relate to in their daily lives, like garbage pickup and roads and schools,'' Nweze said. ``I'm not sure we've been successful in that.''

In two Fort Lauderdale tracts, between 15 and 17 percent of the people marked more than one race; and in two Miami tracts, the numbers were even higher: 20 and 30 percent.

These four tracts have one thing in common, which may explain the surge: They are in Haitian communities where activists participated in a national push to have Haitians mark two boxes: ``black'' and ``other.''

In the blank space below ``other,'' they were urged to write ``Haitian.''

The campaign was propelled by a widely held belief among South Florida's Haitian leaders that their numbers have been grossly undercounted in the past, and by anger over the Census Bureau's refusal to include ``Haitian'' as a separate ethnic category on the most widely distributed census form.

``We don't want to be classified only as black. Something has to be done to represent those blacks from the Caribbean as well as from Africa,'' said Jean-Robert Lafortune, president of the Miami-based Haitian American Grass Roots Coalition. ``By putting Haitian on the census form it's like we're sending a message to the bureau that there is a dire need for a Haitian classification in the future.''

More Haitians identified by the census can mean increased funding for Haitian communities and greater political clout, said Lafortune and others.

Haitians were able to mark ``black'' and ``other'' in 2000 because, for the first time, the census allowed people to choose more than one race. Seven million people did exactly that.

Census Bureau officials said that both boxes were tallied by the computer regardless of the fact that Haitian is not a race.

``It's just like if that person checked black and Asian. That person would be multiracial,'' said Jesse McKinnon, a statistician and demographer with the Census Bureau.

In the four tracts where multiracial percentages soared, the categories ``black'' and ``other'' were by far the most popular.

TRACT LOCATIONS

The Fort Lauderdale tracts lie next to each other along Sunrise Boulevard, between Northeast Ninth Avenue and Flagler Drive - in the heart of Broward's Haitian community. Seventy-first Street bisects the neighboring Miami tracts, which sit just east of I-95 in the heart of Little Haiti.

Ninety-four percent of the nearly 4,500 multiracial people in those four tracts chose ``black,'' and 92 percent of them chose ``other.'' The remaining racial categories reaped far smaller percentages.

``I want for the Haitian community to be identified,'' said Lyvie Fatal, 36, a health coordinator counselor for the Haitian American Community Association of Dade, who checked ``black'' and then wrote ``Haitian'' next to ``other.''

``Most of us did that because we want to be included and identified.''

Haitian groups secured grant funding from the Census Bureau after testifying before the bureau's congressional committee in 1998 about the need for increased census education.

The push was prompted by a study published by Florida International University professor Alex Stepick, which argued that between 25 and 50 percent of Haitians in Miami-Dade were uncounted in the 1990 census.

``This became a national issue for us,'' Lafortune said.

Six months before the Census Bureau distributed its form, Lafortune and Haitian activists from Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Orlando, and parts of New York and New Jersey began encouraging Haitians to fill out the census form, and specifically, the two boxes.

``We know that by putting Haitian, the community will benefit somehow,'' said Henry Frank, executive director of the Haitian Centers Council in Brooklyn, where an estimated 450,000 Haitians live.

In Orlando, Edwige Romulus, chairman of the Haitian American Support Group of Central Florida, sounded out the message to ``put Haitian'' from his two radio programs.

In Broward and Miami-Dade, activists spread the message via radio, churches, adult education schools, and by handing out audio and video tapes in Creole.

In late March 2000, 200 Haitian families gathered in the Toussaint Louverture Community School in Little Haiti, where Lafortune and others explained that the census could help combat problems in their community be increasing funding for ailing schools and services.

``Once we explained all of those problems, they became very eager to fill out those forms,'' said Lafortune. He estimated that 90 percent of them checked ``other'' as well as ``black.''

LIKES HIGHER NUMBERS

Marvin Dejean of the Haitian Community Center in Fort Lauderdale is encouraged by the high percentage of multiracial statistics in the two tracts where his office is located.

Multiracial, to him, means Haitian.

``There would be no reason for them to check anything other than black. The only explanation would be that they put black and then put their country of origin, like we kept telling them,'' said Dejean, senior vice president of economic development and marketing for the center.

``We're just throwing a monkey wrench into the idea of people being categorized between black and white,'' he added. ``I rely incredibly on census tract information. So if I have a census tract that tells people to just sign off as black and I don't capture ethnicity or country of origin, I'm pretty much dead in the water.''

Bulging Broward County made its own mark. It has grown at a faster rate - 29 percent - than Miami-Dade since 1990, becoming the fifth fastest-growing large county in the nation in total population, and fourth fastest in its Hispanic population.

In total numbers, Broward (1.6 million-plus) moved to 15th place in the nation, bypassing even Manhattan by about 100,000 people.

A Herald analysis Friday of 2000 Census figures released this month for the nation's counties serves to further cement familiar images: Broward as the epitome of sprawling growth, Miami-Dade as the capital of café con leche.

``The area is still a magnet for Hispanics and a magnet for immigrants, all the things that make Florida such a diverse state,'' said William Frey, a demographer at California's Milken Institute. ``South Florida and Miami continue to be a window on America's relationship with the Caribbean and South America.''

Broward also now ranks seventh in percentage of black residents among counties of 1 million or more. Broward is 21 percent black. Dade, at 20 percent, ranks ninth in percentage of blacks.

Miami-Dade's ranking as No. 1 in percentage of Hispanics in counties over 1 million people comes as no surprise to some demographics experts.

``You can trace the evolution of Miami from a city that catered to tourists in the '60s to the very Latin American city it is today,'' said Lisandro Pérez, a Florida International University sociology professor and director of the Cuban Research Institute.

Some areas, like Los Angeles County, have a larger number of Hispanics, he notes, but Miami-Dade's population is 57 percent Hispanic, making the city feel more heavily influenced by them.

``There's very much of a foreign atmosphere here that's palpable to people who visit,'' Pérez said. ``There's the extent to which Spanish is a public language here. The extent to which institutions have adjusted to that. It all contributes to the feel of Miami as a Hispanic place.''

The Census numbers also show the speed at which Broward is becoming more like Miami-Dade. Broward's rate of Hispanic growth placed it fourth in the nation among counties larger than 1 million people.

In total population, Broward ranks 15th in the nation, while Miami-Dade is No. 8, up two slots from a decade ago. That makes Dade the second largest county on the East Coast, behind Kings County, N.Y., which encompasses Brooklyn.

Broward planner Bill Leonard sounded a note of caution about the growth, at least as it applies to his county. ``I'm still of the opinion that a lot of this apparent growth is actually a result of doing a better job on the 2000 count than we did in 1990,'' he said. ``A lot of this is catching up.''

He said Census workers seem to have done a much more thorough job on the 2000 head count, and may have ferreted out people they missed in 1990, making it look as though the county grew faster than it did.

``On the other hand,'' he said, ``we are growing. That's for sure.''

COMPARING POPULATION GROWTH RATE 1990-2000

Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade are the fastest growing large counties on the U.S. East Coast. Here are the fastest-growing U.S. counties over 1 million population:

Increase 1 Clark NV 82% 2 Maricopa AZ 44% 3 Palm Beach FL 30% * 4 Riverside CA 29% 5 Broward FL 29% 6 Tarrant TX 23% 7 Harris TX 20% 8 Dallas TX 19% 9 San Bernardino CA 19% 10 Orange CA 18% 11 Bexar TX 17% 12 Miami-Dade FL 16% * This analysis compares 2000 U.S. Census data with 1990 national data slightly adjusted by the Census Bureau to account for changes in boundaries. If the 2000 numbers are compared to the official data released by the bureau in 1990, Palm Beach's growth rate is 31 percent.

2000 POPULATION: BROWARD PASSES MANHATTAN

Broward County moved up from 23rd to 15th place in population among U.S. counties between 1990 and 2000, bypassing Manhattan, the two Long Island counties (Nassau and Suffolk), Allegheny County (Pittsburgh), Philadelphia County and Cuyahoga County (Cleveland).

Rank Population 1 Los Angeles CA 9,519,338 2 Cook IL 5,376,741 3 Harris TX 3,400,578 4 Maricopa AZ 3,072,149 5 Orange CA 2,846,289 6 San Diego CA 2,813,833 7 Kings (Brooklyn) NY 2,465,326 8 Miami-Dade FL 2,253,362 15 Broward FL 1,623,018

A Herald analysis of Census 2000 data shows that while Hispanics and white non-Hispanics are relatively integrated, other groups - Hispanics and blacks, and whites and blacks - live much more separately.

And major cities like Fort Lauderdale and Miami made little progress in the 1990s, remaining almost as segregated in 2000 as they were a decade ago, the data shows.

``There's still that black-white divide - which also becomes a black-Hispanic divide, because most Hispanics are white,'' said Thomas Boswell, a population expert at the University of Miami. ``These things change very slowly.''

But he finds it encouraging that Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites continue to live in mixed neighborhoods at roughly the same rate they did a decade ago, even as the Hispanic population has grown.

``It would be easy for Hispanics, who are 57 percent of the [Miami-Dade] population, to choose to be in all-Hispanic neighborhoods, but they're not doing that,'' Boswell said. ``I think that's a good sign.''

Some cities are relatively integrated: North Lauderdale in Broward and Surfside in Miami-Dade, for example, both fall into what demographers consider the ``low'' category for segregation.

Segregation levels are calculated using an index based on the number of people who would have to move to a new location in order to ethnically or racially balance the total population. The higher the number, the greater the level of segregation.

Boswell said he considers a rating of 70 or above highly segregated, 30 to 69 moderate and below 30 low.

The formula, developed to measure the integration of school systems, addresses only where people live. It does not measure how likely people of different ethnic or racial groups are to mix in other ways.

Using that index to examine the population of Miami, for example, shows that blacks and Hispanics are highly segregated, rating 83 out of a possible 100. White non-Hispanics and blacks are nearly as isolated from one another, rating a 75.

Only Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites in Miami were relatively integrated, with a rating of 46.

``Is it because people want to live with people like themselves or because they can't live in places where people discriminate against them? That's the question,'' said Oliver Kerr, a Miami-Dade demographer.

Segregation is a feature of South Florida that hasn't changed much over the years. Kerr conducted a study in 1995, based on the 1990 Census, that drew similar conclusions.

``Residential segregation by race is clearly evident in Miami,'' Kerr wrote in his 1995 report.

The 2000 numbers measure just how slight the change has been, at least in the city of Miami. The ratings did not change in the three largest categories by more than 2 points in the last 10 years, suggesting that Miami's racial and ethnic divide remains almost as wide as it was in 1990.

The picture is much the same in Fort Lauderdale, where integration levels remained unchanged among all three major groups during the last decade.

``I think that's probably correct. The housing patterns remained constant through that period of time,'' said Fort Lauderdale City Manager Floyd Johnson. ``There isn't that much movement across socio-economic lines, which generally track racial trends as well.''

Segregation among blacks and Hispanics in Fort Lauderdale ranked a 65, the same as it did in 1990. White non-Hispanics and blacks were the most divided, with a ranking of 80, again unchanged from 1990.

And, as in Miami, white non-Hispanics in Fort Lauderdale tended to integrate more with Hispanics, at a rate of 40.

``As far as Hispanics and whites are concerned, there is still some prejudice that exists, but it's not at a very high level,'' said Boswell.

In many places in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, segregation either dropped or remained steady.

But in a few locales, such as Homestead, segregation is actually worsening.

The Herald's analysis shows that in Homestead, Hispanics and white non-Hispanics became more isolated from each other in the last 10 years, jumping from a rating of 41 in 1990 to 48 in 2000.

Steve Shiver, Homestead's former mayor and now Miami-Dade's county manager, said he has seen little evidence to support those numbers, noting that his neighborhood - he still lives in Homestead - is ethnically and racially mixed.

In Broward County, Miramar also became more segregated in all categories during the last 10 years. The Hispanic-black index rose 18 points and the black-white non-Hispanic index rose by 5 points.

Even the rating for segregation between Hispanics and white non-Hispanics increased by 5 points.

Pompano Beach had the highest level of segregation among whites and blacks of any place in Broward, and its level of segregation among Hispanics and blacks rose 7 points since 1990, suggesting that each group is maintaining separate identities.

But Pompano Beach City Commissioner Ed Phillips, an insurance agent, says he hasn't seen any evidence of greater segregation in Broward.

``It's somewhat surprising to me,'' he said. ``I drive a lot in the course of my job and I think there's slightly more integration. At least, that's what I'm seeing.''

Cities where people tended to be more integrated included North Lauderdale, where the rate of Hispanics and blacks mixing was an 8 - highly integrated - and the rate for black-white integration, 19.

In Surfside, another highly integrated neighborhood, the level of segregation among Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites was rock bottom: 4. The highest segregation rate was between Hispanics and blacks, but even that was 16, still in the low category.

For more than 140 years, the tribe has lived among the sawgrass, mangroves and cypress trees of the Everglades. They make their homes along the ``old trail'' just south of Tamiami Trail, building traditional chickees, thatched with cabbage palms, alongside modern structures complete with digital satellite dishes.

During the 1990s, they have built a giant casino, made millions from gambling and lured tourists from all over the world with their colorful patchwork jackets, wood carvings and air boat rides.

But according to figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau on March 27, the Miccosukee reservation is empty. Its population: 0.

The Miccosukees know otherwise.

``The community leaders encouraged the people to take part and participate in the census, and many of them did,'' said Ron Logan, the Miccosukee tribal planner who headed up the census effort. ``So for them not to be reflected in the census, is a real disappointment.'

Although the 2000 Census was ballyhooed as the most accurate and complete count ever, The Herald has discovered that the Census Bureau did not include the tribe in its tally, and neither the bureau nor the tribe is sure how or why.

Ironically, the 1990 Census, widely considered inaccurate, showed there were 94 Miccosukees on the reservation. Tribal officials estimate that 500 people live there now, with an additional 150 people residing outside but near the tribal land.

``A number of things could have happened,'' said Ed Gore, the Census Bureau's assistant division chief for Field Programs. ``American Indian boundaries are sometimes off, so the people may be counted but are not included in that area. The tribe should certainly follow up with us, especially if there are people there.''

Although the idea the tribe may be dispersed inside a wider geographic area sounds plausible, census figures do not jibe with that explanation.

The Miccosukee reservation falls inside a vastly larger census boundary called tract 115. Yet tract 115 shows only 15 American Indians living there - out of 5,189 total.

American Indians long have been among the most undercounted racial groups. In 1990, for example, they had the second highest undercount rate in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

Fleeing North Florida to the river of grass to elude capture and deportation by U.S. troops during the Third Seminole War in 1858, the Miccosukees watched as white settlers in 1928 blazed the Tamiami Trail that cuts across the Florida's southern peninsula.

While decades of demographic changes swept across South Florida, morphing like a racial and ethnic kaleidoscope, the Miccosukees have been a constant amid the marshes.

Today, many of the Miccosukees reside on a narrow sliver of reservation land along Tamiami Trail, 27 miles west of Florida's Turnpike.

Because Census numbers are used to allocate federal dollars to American Indian tribes for services like health clinics and schools, the Miccosukees said they took the 2000 Census seriously.

In fact, they asked the Census Bureau to hire Miccosukee census-takers in an effort to allay centuries of distrust. The Bureau did that, but somehow the numbers didn't get included in the final count.

Some Miccosukees believe the current mix-up is to be expected from the United States government.

``We weren't counted? That's nothing new,'' said one man, emerging from his house on the reservation, who declined to give his name.

Others shrugged it off.

``I might have gotten a form, but I probably threw it away,'' another man said.

In all, The Herald spoke with five reservation residents; only one remembered filling out a census form.

If the Census Bureau missed the Miccosukees living on the reservation, the chances that it caught traditional Miccosukees living off the reservation, in areas like Big Cypress National Preserve, are slim.

Traditional Miccosukees are people who have rejected the notion of living on reservations. They reside in more traditional camps - with thatched houses arranged in what they consider a more authentic fashion - further west along the Tamiami Trail.

``I haven't had anybody from the government come here,'' said Billy Doctor, a member of the Miccosukee Otter Clan who does not recall filling out a Census form. ``I'm kind of isolated here.''

Herald staff writer William Yardley contributed to this report.

POPULATION FIGURES

Year 2000 population figures for some of Florida's American Indian lands.

Big Cypress Reservation 142

Brighton Reservation (near Lake Okeechobee) 566

Fort Pierce Reservation 2

Hollywood Reservation 2,051

Immokalee Reservation 175

Miccosukee Reservation 0

All of the reservations, except the Miccosukee, are of the Seminole Tribe.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

The exodus includes professionals such as Montrell Finn, a 28-year-old lawyer and former prosecutor raised in Allapattah and just recently installed in northern Miami-Dade's California Club area, whose apartments and townhomes are popular with young blacks.

It also includes Jamaican immigrants such as Shirley and O'Neil Kelly, who fled crime and a flourishing drug trade in their longtime Carol City community in Miami-Dade for the serenity of a Miramar subdivision.

And it includes JoAnn White-Roberts and Charles Roberts, U.S. Postal Service workers who yearned for a yard, safe streets and better schools for their children, and found it all at a price they could afford across the county line. ``We were looking ahead to the future,'' White-Roberts, 45, who was raised in Carol City, said as the sounds of playing children filtered into her family's handsome, two-story Miramar home. ``The community is quieter, the neighbors more neighborly. It's a better way of life for us.''

Her husband, who grew up in Liberty City, added with a laugh: ``We always say this is like Leave It to Beaver.''

Much the same thing is happening in Broward, although to a less dramatic degree, as blacks increasingly decamp from northwest Fort Lauderdale for outlying cities such as Lauderhill, Lauderdale Lakes and Sunrise, census figures show.

Leaving central cities for the suburbs is an old American story, but it represents a sea change of unprecedented proportions for South Florida's black population, which long remained anchored to the region's fraying urban core.

To be sure, Liberty City and other inner-city neighborhoods have been gradually leaking people since at least the 1970s, Miami-Dade planners say.

But a Herald analysis of recently released census figures shows that the trend gained formidable impetus in the past decade. Miami-Dade's predominantly black West Little River bled up to 19 percent of its population between 1990 and 2000. Most tellingly, the city of Miami lost as much as 18 percent of its black population in that decade.

During the same period, the black share of the population soared in unincorporated areas and smaller suburban communities from Biscayne Park north to Ives Estates, bringing once unseen diversity to places that previously were overwhelmingly white, and an improved quality of life for many black families.

AN EXPLANATION

``What you have is a convergence of economics and wanting a better standard of living for children and families, and that knows no color,'' said Miami Commissioner Arthur Teele, whose district encompasses the city's largest black neighborhoods.

``Every African American I know who makes $60,000 or more is moving out of Miami, and indeed out of Miami-Dade, or making plans to. Blacks are engaged in this very quiet exodus. They're voting with their feet. This is Liberty City North up there.''

While acknowledging the pull of the suburbs, however, some longtime Miamians worry that the departure of so many blacks, among them some of the community's best and brightest, will dim the prospects for improving neighborhoods such as Liberty City, long struggling with the consequences of widespread poverty.

Ricky Thomas, a well-known radio commentator and political consultant who grew up in Overtown and Brownsville and has lived in Carol City since 1952, fears that the number of blacks leaving urban Miami-Dade could soon rival the number of non-Hispanic whites who left the county in earlier decades.

``Back some years ago, we talked about white flight. Now I call it black flight,'' said Thomas, 65, whose own daughter, Richelle Lee, recently moved across the county line to Miramar with her children. ``There are going to be very few blacks in the city of Miami at the alarming rate they're losing them.''

But some of those who made the move to the suburbs say that staying was not an option. Shirley Kelly and her husband moved out of Carol City, where they had settled after arriving from Jamaica in 1982, as soon as their two sons went off to college five years ago.

Many of their longtime neighbors had died or moved away, she said, and Carol City - once the neighborhood of choice for blacks moving up the economic ladder from Liberty City or Brownsville - became prey to the kinds of urban blight many had come there to escape, including deteriorating or abandoned housing.

``We had problems with drug dealers hanging out on the street, and a lot of break-ins,'' said Kelly, 49, an educator who continues to commute to her job with the 4-H Youth Foundation in Miami-Dade.

``We had several near-encounters when they tried to get in while I was in the house. We had our truck stolen from the driveway. There was no real peace and quiet. We were tired of living with burglar bars and an alarm system.

``I like order and I like beauty and people who care for their environment and their surroundings, and that did not exist where we used to live. But we have that here.''

SOCIAL MOTIVES

For many others, in particular young and professional blacks, the move to the suburbs was motivated by a dearth of desirable places to socialize in the inner city - a fact that had long driven many to seek entertainment in Broward - and a desire to live among peers.

Finn, the young lawyer, grew up in Miami's mixed-race, hardscrabble Allapattah neighborhood, which her parents later left for Carol City. But both of those urban places lacked what she sought: a sense of safety and a professional community. A month ago, she rented an apartment in California Club, midway between her job at a North Miami Beach firm and her favored weekend haunts in Broward.

``I'm a single woman and I work long hours and I just felt it was safer,'' she said. ``It's also quieter.''

Even before she moved there, Richelle Lee - Ricky Thomas' daughter - was doing all her socializing in Broward: shopping at Sawgrass Mills, out to dinner on Pines Boulevard with colleagues from Turner Technical Arts High School in Miami-Dade, where she is a career counselor, and Monday nights for football on TV at Pines Ale House.

Her old street in Carol City, by contrast, no longer felt like home. Of eight families on the block, she said, five had already gone to Broward. When she decided to follow, much to her father's chagrin, the transition was easy, Lee said.

``It felt more comfortable,'' said Lee, 32. ``I was looking for a nice neighborhood, something that felt homey, for my kids, similar to where I grew up in. I found it in Miramar. It's a tree-lined street, and kids can play out in the street.''

WITHIN REACH

Like others, Thomas and Teele say several factors made the exodus possible, not least of all the economic growth of the 1990s and expanded educational opportunities for blacks, which combined to put the suburbs within reach of many of them.

The development boom in southwest Broward was another factor, and so was the phenomenon of ``white flight'' out of Miami-Dade, which made many solid, affordable suburban houses available to young black families looking to buy starter homes.

And, like white flight, the exodus has also been driven in part by the vast demographic changes that have made Hispanics a dominant majority in Miami-Dade and frequently heightened racial tensions.

Thomas said many blacks turn north because of discomfort with the growing Hispanic majority to the south and west - a trend evident even in Carol City, where the census shows the black share of the proportion dropping markedly in the last decade as that community's Hispanic population rose.

``Blacks are running away from Hispanics and running away from Spanish,'' Thomas said.

But that's not the only reason many blacks don't even consider moving south. Some wish to remain near parents. Others cite congestion and overdevelopment in suburbs from Miami Lakes to Kendall, and some, a lower cost of living in Broward or northern Miami-Dade. Still others, like Lee, say anything south of Liberty City is simply ``unfamiliar territory.''

``It doesn't feel like Miami,'' she said.

Often, making the move out of the inner city is a two-step process. Done with school, working first jobs and still single, many blacks rent or buy apartments, town houses or small homes in unincorporated areas such as California Club.

JoAnn White-Roberts bought her first home in Norland, an older but increasingly black enclave in northern Miami-Dade, after she went to work for the Postal Service, where she is now a supervisor. Once they decided to have children, she and her husband made the move to Miramar, to a new development with bigger lots and bigger houses.

Their two girls, now 9 and 3, have never known anything but the suburbs.

``It was only five or six miles, but the atmosphere was so much different, like night and day,'' said Charles Roberts, a letter carrier.

Even newcomers are now joining the march out of urban Miami. Since 1990, the census shows, the population of Little Haiti has dropped 13 percent, in part because growing numbers of Haitian immigrants are gaining a firmer economic foothold in their new homeland and buying or renting houses in North Miami and surrounding communities.

Like native-born blacks, Haitians from Little Haiti, which is afflicted with some of the highest crime rates in Miami, are now venturing as far as Miramar and Pembroke Pines.

``The dynamics of the Haitian community have changed a lot,'' said Jean Monestime, a North Miami real estate age