Equality

America’s Disappearing Public Beaches

How classism and racism are pushing beach access out of reach for many.

Me learning to walk, with a cameo by my mother’s legs. Circa 1983.

My earliest steps were practiced on the sands of Cocoa Beach, Florida. At every turn of my childhood, there remains a beach-infused moment that is enshrouded in nostalgia. I graduated high school in Virginia Beach, and spent my 20s in Coronado, California, only a block away from the cold Pacific Ocean. I am a child of the water.

Which is why it brings me great sadness seeing the mass privatization of so many beaches. I know the feeling of sand beneath your feet, and the seaside wind on your face, and playing in the water with friends, will become a luxury, rather than a right. The exclusion isn’t happening in one sweeping ban. It is a product of incrementalism and classism at its finest. The sad truth is that there could well come a day when you are “too poor” to go to the beach.

I was recently walking along the street in downtown Clearwater, which is only 30 minutes from my home in Tampa. The city and its beaches were mostly public, but are now being slowly over-run by the Church of Scientology (it’s headquartered there) buying up huge swathes of coveted real estate. This is compounded by the commercialization of the city and mansions springing up along its waterfronts…