It's funny you talk about cultural diversity, because Broward county is MORE diverse than Miami-Dade. Broward's diversity index rating is 2.467 Miami-Dade's is 2.454. It is just a small difference, but it's funny because people think of Miami-Dade as being more diverse than Broward. Diversity is measured in how likely a person is to be a different race if picked at random, in Miami-Dade Hispanics are the clear majority, therefore it is less diverse. In Broward county there is NO one race of people accounting for more than 50% of the population, there is in Dade. Whites are, as of this year, a minority in Broward county (the largest minority, but still a minority at 49% of the population. So 51% of Broward is now minority, and that number only grows every year. If you want to check those numbers, as I'm sure you will, you can click the links at the bottom of this post.
The thing about rappers never mentioning Fort Lauderdale... most people from a national standpoint consider the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area one big metro (so does the Federal Government who combines the counties together for census reporting, and sees the area as a one metropolitan area).
As you can see from the other posts left by other members, Broward is no longer the sleepy county of the 80's or 90's. Things have changed big time. Broward has come into its own in a big way. The King Tut Exhibit (only going to 4 cities in America), the biggest thing of cultural relevance to hit South Florida since I don't know when, it's not in downtown Miami, its in downtown Fort Lauderdale. The first ever national tour of the Broadway smash musical Wicked, not at the Jackie Gleason, it's in Fort Lauderdale at the Broward Center. We recently had a OAS summit with leaders from all over LATIN AMERICA in attendance, not in Miami, in Fort Lauderdale off 17th st. When Madonna premiered her new cd to be listened to for the first time ever (the CD was accompanied by a body guard, and destroyed after it was played through) it was not played at a club on South Beach, it was played at a club in Hollywood at the Seminole Paradise. You get the picture. It used to be that every time something important came to town it was only in Miami, not any more. Now BOTH Miami-Dade AND Broward have got it going on.
http://broward.org/planningservices/bbtn18.pdf http://broward.org/planningservices/bbtn3.pdf