We talk loosely of America as being bicoastal, using stereotyped notions of East and West Coasters to differentiate them from the inlanders of “flyover country.” But both are actually inlanders who have chosen to bring their interior habits to a new place. Coasts have become the last frontier for interior populations, overwhelming the last remnants of older coastal communities and making the coast itself an extension of land--a mistake which we repeatedly pay for after major storms and tsunamis. The effort to extend the land to the edge of the sea, as if there is some line in the sand that the forces of nature will not cross, has been catastrophic not only environmentally but socially and politically. If we would only look, America has a rich coastal past to learn from.

This article appears in the print edition of Coast & Ocean