WORKING WATERFRONT • September 30, 2020
There is a massive internal migration in the United States from the heartland to the coast. By mid-century, more than half the population will have moved to the edges, mostly into the density of large urban and suburban regions in search of work and social engagement. We will be running out of shoreline—assumed by wealthy estates, water-dependent and marine-related industries, vestigial public spaces like parks and beaches, and remnants of coastal wetlands that have been protected from the constant pressure of development. There is a terrible irony in the statement that the ocean is the last great wilderness when in fact its access is becoming more and more limited by human settlement, its value compromised by intensity of use.