I found your comments on your trip very interesting -thanks for sharing! I agree the strongly that we should be careful of falsely claiming Utopia has been achieved somewhere where the grass is greener -or that it should even be the goal.You must go visit because the pictures do not do justice. The diversity and accessibility of coastline is Utopian! Or is it? I am just asking the question how do we balance development with pristine wilderness? South Walton did for a long time but the gig is over as for as pristine goes. If you do plan a trip to Oregon I know you will see what I see and ask the questions that I ask. Why is the area so economically depressed? Is that the trade off? Is it an acceptable trade off? Before answering the question you probably should ask why are there are so many Trump bumper stickers and signs. I have freed myself of following either political party. I vote both ways depending on the best choice. It allows me to see the middle and not take sides. This is hard to do and I admit but if you can you will find a disconnection between the people and either political party. If you limit yourself to one side ALL the time you will become an artist of justification. The Democratic Party taught me that lesson during Clinton and the Republican party is teaching me that with Trump. I am not just talking about morals and ethics but a extremely divided people from a two party political system. Should we be this divided? The people that live along the Oregon coastline is a perfect example of what frustration does in the form of politics and justification.
One more thing about the dune system in Oregon. There is nothing like it anywhere I have ever been. One problem though. We stayed in Winchester Bay two nights and the best place we could find bordered camping (which we like to do but not on this trip). The walls were super thin. The carpet was stained. Not much air-conditioning. AND there was a dune buggy festival where all you heard all night was big trucks, trailers and loud noises. Listen I am a redneck and I even found this to be annoying! View areas of the dunes looked like a scene from a Mad Max movie! Beautiful but not exactly pristine This was our 2nd trip out there and it seems that infrastructure is deteriorating slightly. We have also traveled to San Francisco and Seattle and it seems that the same thing is happening with infrastructure. I am just trying to make a point that pictures do no tell the whole story and you must travel and interact with the people to find out the whole story.
I might add, there are some reasons to be careful about making too clean of a comparison between the two locations (Oregon Coast, or PNW in general, and SoWal, or FL in general). Obviously the climate has a huge impact -you'd have to consider, if FL had a tourist season of 2-4 months, how would that affect things both in terms of economic health/depression of the local communities, as well as demand and development (ie, . The have long been questions about the tough questions regarding economic health of communities in places like Oregon (also the midwest, and various small communities nationwide), so I think I might tend to regard Trump signs or policies as more of a response than the origin of that theme (assuming they are related to it at all). Reading your comments reminded me in many ways of the story of the long history of the park and preservation efforts in the Adirondacks. Of course it is beautiful, and of course conservation of the beauty is ideal, but one has to be willing to face the difficulties which may occur if you restrict industry -namely, few jobs or economic booms. Many locals in these areas are happy to live modest lives and be mostly self-sustaining, but there is a feeling at times that perhaps the combination of the people getting bigger eyes, and increased restrictions on their economic opportunity, can contribute to the uneasy feeling of tension between the two aims. Add in some politicians.....and it really can be interesting. There was a pretty decent capsule of the issue in the Adirondacks a few years back here. So while the draw and demands of various places of natural beauty/importance vary, as do the approaches each location pursue, there are similarities in the feeling of being pulled in one direction or the other. I tend to believe this is more a fact to be accepted than something to "fix", but acceptance of that does not mean apathy, but to try to find where the reasonable compromises can be made, and take a targeted approach instead of vast generalizations on either side. Tourists destinations -esp. warm ones with long seasons -can have a somewhat alternate reality compared to more typical places due to the seemingly endless demand so the conversations are somewhat different, but still I think the concept of finding an elusive balance is universal. Even in a one-stoplight town, if you were to add a second or remove the first, it would create that natural tension....
Cheers!