{"title":"The Narrowing of Broad Beach","authors":"K. Schlichting","doi":"10.1525/phr.2023.92.2.199","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Waterfronts represent some of Southern California’s most valuable real estate and most sought-after recreation destinations. Despite Los Angeles County’s reputation for large public beaches, privatization and the discouragement of public use came to characterize Malibu’s Broad Beach by the end of the twentieth century. In the same era, erosion reshaped the boundary between public and private property on the beach. Residents called for permanent structures to stabilize the coast. Public beach activists rejected homeowners’ claims that beach armoring was in the public’s interest. Activists demanded state authorities expand access opportunities and protect public recreation instead of protecting beachfront mansions. As coastal erosion altered the parameters of public access, environmental change raised the stakes regarding state and federal authorities’ responsibilities to maintain beaches. At the turn of the twenty-first century, the longstanding challenge to public access in this exclusive Malibu enclave collided with the unfolding climate crisis, highlighting the entwined nature of environmental risk and real estate development on the beach.","PeriodicalId":45312,"journal":{"name":"PACIFIC HISTORICAL REVIEW","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"PACIFIC HISTORICAL REVIEW","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1525/phr.2023.92.2.199","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"HISTORY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Waterfronts represent some of Southern California’s most valuable real estate and most sought-after recreation destinations. Despite Los Angeles County’s reputation for large public beaches, privatization and the discouragement of public use came to characterize Malibu’s Broad Beach by the end of the twentieth century. In the same era, erosion reshaped the boundary between public and private property on the beach. Residents called for permanent structures to stabilize the coast. Public beach activists rejected homeowners’ claims that beach armoring was in the public’s interest. Activists demanded state authorities expand access opportunities and protect public recreation instead of protecting beachfront mansions. As coastal erosion altered the parameters of public access, environmental change raised the stakes regarding state and federal authorities’ responsibilities to maintain beaches. At the turn of the twenty-first century, the longstanding challenge to public access in this exclusive Malibu enclave collided with the unfolding climate crisis, highlighting the entwined nature of environmental risk and real estate development on the beach.
期刊介绍:
For over 70 years, the Pacific Historical Review has accurately and adeptly covered the history of American expansion to the Pacific and beyond, as well as the post-frontier developments of the 20th-century American West. Recent articles have discussed: •Japanese American Internment •The Establishment of Zion and Bryce National Parks in Utah •Mexican Americans, Testing, and School Policy 1920-1940 •Irish Immigrant Settlements in Nineteenth-Century California and Australia •American Imperialism in Oceania •Native American Labor in the Early Twentieth Century •U.S.-Philippines Relations •Pacific Railroad and Westward Expansion before 1945