115 
While pessimistic about the future status of the coast for public use, 
the series stresses the importance of recognizing the critical nature of 
the problem in order to avoid the same mistakes with inland lake 
and mountain areas, already under heavy pressures of speculation 
and development. 
While Maine debates the pros and cons of oil refineries, sulfur reduction plants 
and aluminum processing, a quiet revolution in landownership continues which 
promises to bar all but the most affluent from our 3,000 miles of ocean frontage. 
* * * development has already progressed to the point where, regardless of 
what the State does, there is unlikely to be enough suitable ocean frontage to 
serve Maine and its ever-increasing hordes of summer visitors. 
Our survey reveals that Maine’s coast has been sold, and that the buyers are 
largely from out-of-State. Big blocks remain in the hands of speculators and devel- 
opers, and while plans are being made, Maine citizens are wandering at will as 
before, fishing the rocks, harvesting the crops of wild berries and enjoying secret 
picnic spots. 
But the pattern has been set. Wildland that in some cases was seid for unpaid 
taxes as recently as a decade and a half ago is about to become sites for luxury 
vacation and retirement homes with shore frontage selling for up to $100 a foot— 
or $20,000 for a 200-foot lot. 
Much of the coastal zone is in out-of-State ownership, which 
averages 45 percent in the area but reaches 75 percent in many com- 
munities. Many real estate brokers reported that 80 percent or more of 
their business had been with out of staters. This boom is related to all 
the factors previously mentioned: increasing populations, growing 
prosperity, and better transportation such as the Maine turnpike and 
highway system that makes half the State’s coastline no more than a 
3-hour trip from Boston. These factors, combined with the desire to 
get away from the hectic metropolitan atmosphere of noise and pollu- 
tion, have led to the unprecedented demands currently placed on 
Maine’s coastal real estate. As a consequence, ‘Maine residents, the 
ereatest number of whom find the stakes too rich for their income, 
have found themselves shut off from the sea and the wilderness by 
out-of-State buyers who put up a sign before they put up a house.” ' 
The critical status of shoreline resources as discussed in the preced- 
ing sections points to an immediate, urgent need to protect all the 
shoreline resources still available, and to look for ways to reverse the 
trends of decreasing supply. ‘“The welfare of American society now 
demands that manmade laws be extended to regulate the impact of 
man on the biophysical environment so that the natural estuarine 
zone can be preserved, developed, and used for the continuing benefit 
of the citizens of the United States.” 1 We might ask why this has 
not been done in the past. The answer lies partly in the attitudes 
within our institutional environment taken toward the coastal zone. 
Until recently, most States and communities were not cognizant of 
the coastal zone as an environment separate from other regions of the 
State and in need of special attention. In addition, there has been a 
lack of cooperation and coordination among local, State, and Federal 
agencies, and private industries, especially where conflicts of interest 
(economic or political) existed. Hence, most planning for the use of 
the coastal zone has been done by bits and pieces, in small increments, 
and by reacting to crises when they materialized (and usually too late 
for constructive action to be taken). Prior to World War II, what 
planning that was done on a national scale had objectives that “were 
16A Pat Sherlock, ‘““The Best of Maine Lost to the Rest of Maine,” Boston Sunday Globe, Sept. 20, 1970.. 
16 Tbid., reference 1, p. 1. 
