I agree with Kirsten on most of her points. I have full faith that SoWal will continue to grow. I also believe that many people who have lived here for a long time, for a short time, or who are second-home owners love it (regardless of when they bought their places here), though they may have different ideas about what it should look like in the future and what kind of people they want to be around.
Kirsten clearly loves the area and makes her comments not to tease people or annoy people, but to express a heartfelt hope and desire to have some say in the future of the area. As for Hamptons or Prada or whatever else annoys many people, that didn't jump out at me as much as someone caring about the area (and I don't own any Prada and I've never been to the Hamptons). I don't think Kirsten expected the comments to become SoWal sport (sorry, Kirsten -- message boards can often lack politeness norms that we often play by in face to face conversations).
There are other threads on this topic, but I wouldn't mind hearing ideas on this thread as well. I have to go to work now so can't reply now with specific ideas (other than get the boardwalks up quickly after storms and/or have the kind of boardwalks that can be pulled up before a storm is predicted). I think my comments would have to do more with protecting many of the good things we already have (bike trail, nature, parks, etc.), managing traffic, life guards in some areas (which we'll have), supporting local businesses including restaurants/galleries/taxis/physicians. I also think having more books of all kinds about the area published (with the great photos by our growing number of photographers in this area) would be useful (e.g. history, cookbooks, poetry, photographs, children's books, etc.)
So Kirsten, I think it would be very interesting and useful to have a conversation with you!
