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Beach Politics

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Setha Low discusses how elites restrict access to public beaches around the globe

Image courtesy of interviewee. August 21, 2024

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This video is a transcript of an interview discussing the book "Beach Politics," where the author explains their motivations for writing about the access and privatization issues surrounding public beaches. The author, originally from Los Angeles and now living on the East Coast, contrasts the generally accessible beaches of California with the privatized beach access experienced in areas like Connecticut and New Jersey. They emphasize the significance of public space for democracy, social justice, health, and cultural identity.

The central argument of the book is that public beaches are increasingly at risk due to privatization efforts by wealthy homeowners, climate change, and government policies. These changes not only limit public access but also create ecological disparities by favoring private interests. The author stresses the importance of understanding the complex dynamics and rationalizations behind these shifts, which often include elements of racism and economic interests.

Overall, the author hopes the book encourages readers to reflect critically on these strategies of privatization and the societal implications of losing access to public beaches, urging collaboration in addressing these challenges.

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I'm a beach person.

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I went to the beach every day of my life.

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And in California, the beaches,

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at least I thought at the time, were free and accessible.

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You could take the bus and go to the beach.

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Um, I then at one point moved to the east coast

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and in the east coast, the first time I think I went to,

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actually Connecticut is where I first went.

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I went to go to the beach and you couldn't get on the beach.

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It was private. It was a town beach.

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You had to have a sticker.

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Then I went to New Jersey and you had to buy something

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and put a tag on.

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Anyway, early, early on, quite a few years ago.

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And then my mother used to clip me articles, which is really

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how this started, about Malibu beaches being,

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illegally guarded by the, it's mostly the Hollywood crowd.

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And then the Hollywood crowd moved to East Hampton

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where I happened to live, which is also a beach community,

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and started doing the same thing.

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Um, I was already an expert in public space,

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interested in privatization of public space

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or the lack of access to it.

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I am a big promoter of that.

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Public space is

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what matters in more ways than we can really imagine.

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And suddenly I realized that beaches were,

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at risk and that there was nothing written about it.

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Very little news.

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Lots of journalists, news stories here and there.

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Some things, by Andrew call on the loss

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of African American beaches, the taking of those,

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but very, very little in the academic literature now.

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Wasn't an expert in this subject, yet.

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And, what one does, when one wants

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to start a project, or at least what I do,

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is I invite colleagues who are expert in the field so

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that each of us can write about our own, ethnography

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or if we're historians history

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or if we're geographers a geographic analysis.

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And I searched everywhere in the world,

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and found colleagues who were mostly public space experts,

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that's how I knew them, but who were working on beaches.

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And I said, let's put something together

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that would be very original and would fill this gap

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and would begin a conversation, really a conversation about

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the beach and why it's disappearing

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and why we're losing access.

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And in particular, how is the beach different

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from all the other work

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that we've been doing on public space?

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I think that public space is the most, is a,

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is a public resource with the greatest impact

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for the greatest flourishing

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or benefit of a city or group of people.

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The most important thing about public space is

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that it is the basis of democracy,

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of democratic practices, of

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People coming together

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and, can be the site

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where social justice is really enacted.

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And many of us write about that,

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and that's really the bottom.

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But we sometimes stop there.

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It's a place where we come into contact with one another,

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build public culture.

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And in doing that, we really began

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to create the kinds of dialogues.

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And in fact, in the United States right now,

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and maybe even in the uk, people are not necessarily

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participating in, certainly it's a global problem,

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but it does a lot more public space is incredibly

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important for our health.

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There's been new research over the last 10 years that shows

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it's not just physical health.

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That means the sort of walking and being outside.

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It's mental health. It's the place

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where everyone goes when there's a tragedy.

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It's the place where children play.

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It's the place where we're socialized.

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It's the most important aspect. The sustainability.

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If we had more gardens and trees and green space

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or blue space, we could change the climate of our cities.

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And then things that people don't even think about,

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public space for most of the world is a place of work.

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60% of people in the global south

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work informally.

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And where do you think their workplace is? Public space.

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So it also contributes to the economy,

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the integration of immigrants.

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Um, anyhow, I could go on.

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I told you it's important for cultural identity.

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It's where, people can express

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who they are in groups.

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It's as simple as being able to get together

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with all your family,

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or as complicated as how we bring strangers together

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and create ways of being together that work for everyone.

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So if I were to say, if anyone asked me anymore,

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not earlier in my career,

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but now how would I design the best city?

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I would start with public space.

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I really feel it's fundamental, really fundamental

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to human wellbeing and flourishing both at the individual

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level, at the community level, and even for cities.

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The beach for me, as a person who grew up in LA

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and now lives at the beach as well,

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the beach is the place of contact.

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It is the public space that I use on a daily basis, as do

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dog walkers and all kinds of other individuals.

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So one could argue that it is a public space,

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like any other public space that promotes health

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and socialization on the,

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and on the other hand, it is very different.

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It is ecologically very fragile.

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It is valued by the real estate industry in ways

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that, well, most public space takes Central

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Park or valuable.

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I don't mean that, but the beach creates this kind of,

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value extra to any, any property that is on the beach.

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It is a place, of perceived

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as a place of freedom.

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Um, I think ideologically

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and spiritual freedom so that it draws a variety

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of different kinds of people who don't go

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to other public spaces.

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Um, I think, you know,

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you've asked whether it's always a place

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of a political pro protest.

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I would say not as much as a center square in a city.

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All right? But when something happens

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to a beach, everyone gets involved.

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In other words, from a Dewey point of view, that, that that

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pub publicity

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or publicness is created by attending to a problem.

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When problems happen on the beach,

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they do mobilize communities in,

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in ways, creating protests.

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And the book beach politics, obviously by its name,

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is not just about the loss of beaches and why we lose them

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and what the rationale are for how it is

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that beaches are becoming less public,

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which is the major theme.

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It's also about all the people

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who are fighting these changes,

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then the way in which protests works,

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whether it's effective or not.

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I mean, it was very effective in Dali Mount in Dublin.

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They saved the beach.

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The people did save the beach,

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and the government changed their policy from putting in

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more golf courses.

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Let's, for an example,

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but not so effective on the lower east side of New York

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where the community organized to save

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trees on a river edge, which I'm considering a, a shore.

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Um, that was, that had, let me say, you know,

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climate change was eroding

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and where the whole community organized

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and came up with a plan.

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The city came down and ignored them

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where the protest didn't work.

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So, so the, the book does look at when political protest

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erupts, but it also tries to say where it works,

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where it worked, where it didn't work,

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and tries to, try to make it a little more complex

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and, and nuanced.

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Politics around beaches are often obscured

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and not very visible.

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I don't know if you would agree with that,

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but I actually, I just got an,

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an email text about another Malibu beach in which,

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anyhow, they're, they're, they're scamming

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the neighbors to keep it.

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I mean, what starts me is that a lot of the loss

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of beach is a kind of privatization

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by private homeowners in a, in a wealthy area such as,

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east Hampton or Malibu.

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I'm talking in the United States,

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but it's the same actually along the coast of, Beirut.

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I mean, there are very wealthy neighborhoods

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where homeowners are trying

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to keep the public off the beach.

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That's where I started.

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So that's a particular kind of privatization.

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And if you look at the literature, one

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of the major themes in the book is that the wealthy tend

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to be able to stop access to what they conceive

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of, of their beach, regardless of the laws that exist

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that say the beach is public.

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All right? It's it.

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But what I'm also trying to,

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cinematize in the book is that it isn't just

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wealthy owners, which who are the bad guys,

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of which that's certainly important, and I'm highlighting it

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because that's something I've written about a lot.

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I I do think

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that private interests take over public space in many ways,

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and this is an important theme.

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I'm not, but, but there's more going on.

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So with, climate change,

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there are increasing numbers of storms, right?

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And more and more beaches are becoming eroded

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or, you know, who, what happens to those eroded beaches

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has an impact on all the other beaches.

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So again, if, if as what just happened here, the core

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of army engineers, which is a, a US based, you know,

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organization, decided that they would add sand

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to the public beaches or,

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and private beaches along, what's called Montauk,

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along the shoreline of, let's just say Long Island.

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It's going all the way from fire island all

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the way to the end of the island.

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In doing that, they impact other public beaches.

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Sometimes, private citizens are allowed

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to put up bulwarks, put up walls, harden the edge

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that captures sand from one place, as is.

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Kirk Iveson talks about in Sydney, Australia at,

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you know, that they,

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the government okayed putting up a wall,

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and then what did it do?

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It gave sand to the homeowners

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and took sand from the public and on and on.

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So it's not just stopping access

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and privatization in that way.

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Even ecological interventions, even what are seen

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as environmental restorations

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can very often benefit one group over another.

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Racism plays an incredibly important role.

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Poor people or

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Marginalized people, often of color,

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at least in the United States, very much African Americans

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who after, aft after, you know,

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after the big transition

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and, restoration moved to beaches

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to live, and those beaches little by little

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were, have been taken away.

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Same thing in Brazil, same thing in Puerto Rico.

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And then of course, there's governments.

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It isn't just private wealthy individuals.

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It's not just climate change in the core of engineers.

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It's not just racism,

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or I'm, I'm saying racism in a loose way,

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but in which it's, taking land from those

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who were living on it, which often tends in,

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in the book you'll see is heavily a racist practice.

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It's the most marginalized, often residents of color

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who were losing it, whether it's in South Africa or Brazil

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or Puerto Rico or the United States.

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Finally, there are governments who decide that they want

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to develop for tourism.

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And in their develop, developing, they harden,

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they harden the line, they change who can be there.

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They make, the public beaches inaccessible,

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and that there's just, there's governments who in fact

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make something not public

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and reutilize it to sell apartments or to increase tourism.

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The reason an academic would go

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and try to do a book on, what is it?

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Beach apologists, social, environmental,

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and racial injustice, you know, along the shoreline is

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to try to poke at, take apart

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those strategies.

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The, I call 'em strategies. The rationalizations.

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The legitimation.

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Maybe you could think of a better word, maybe,

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but what I'm really interested in

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how people get away with it, how are they explaining

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to their, say, Beirut?

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I mean, I'm trying to not just make it us,

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but how do you explain that you're taking the beach away

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and leaving the one public beach with sewer and trash

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and so polluted that it's closed.

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