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Tampa, Florida, is enjoying a surge in tourism, residents and development

Tampa surged into the national spotlight in 2020, with the arrival of NFL legend Tom Brady and a flood of new residents from northern cities escaping COVID-19 lockdowns and finding personal and economic freedom in Florida.

Tampa is strutting these days with pride, purpose and freedom.

The largest city on Florida's Gulf Coast has enjoyed an economic and popularity surge at least a decade in the making.

The lid blew off the top of Tampa’s simmering ascendancy three years ago. 

NFL legend and gossip-page headline maker Tom Brady landed in Tampa in 2020, shining a bright new spotlight on the city. His arrival was followed by unprecedented pro sports success for Tampa franchises on the gridiron and on the ice.

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A wave of domestic refugees — first-time tourists and new residents — began arriving in Tampa in 2020, too. They were seeking freedom in Florida from onerous COVID-19 policies that crippled other cities around the country.  

"I was in Manhattan during the lockdowns of COVID and it was just insufferable, and the oppression I truly felt was enough to make me leave," Devon Langston, a social media executive who now calls Tampa home, told Fox News Digital. 

A mural outside downtown Tampa. Tampa is clean, sunny and booming. Population in the Florida Gulf Coast city surged 15% from 335,000 in the 2010 U.S. Census to the 385,000. Tampa continues to grow.  (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)

She was enjoying a sun-splashed winter day on Sparkman Wharf, a new outdoor venue of shipping-container food stalls with a bustling beer garden and family activities next to Tampa’s busy cruise ship terminal. 

Added Langston, "I picked Florida. I had never been here before in my life. But I knew it was free. I know I could live my life irrelevant of my vaccination status." 

"I picked Florida. I had never been here before in my life. But I knew it was free."