. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. Coastal Tourism: A Balancing Act. By Jeannie Faris When Best was a boy, Atlantic Beach was little more than an isolated stretch of sand traveled at low tide by folks going from Morehead City to Salter Path. Those days, however, are long behind him. Today, the town of Atlantic Beach is a thick clutch of souvenir shops, airy beach homes, nightclubs, rides and restaurants settled at the base of the arching bridge to Morehead City. To the east, the town is hemmed in by Fort Macon State Park. To the west,
. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. Coastal Tourism: A Balancing Act. By Jeannie Faris When Best was a boy, Atlantic Beach was little more than an isolated stretch of sand traveled at low tide by folks going from Morehead City to Salter Path. Those days, however, are long behind him. Today, the town of Atlantic Beach is a thick clutch of souvenir shops, airy beach homes, nightclubs, rides and restaurants settled at the base of the arching bridge to Morehead City. To the east, the town is hemmed in by Fort Macon State Park. To the west, a live oak-lined corridor of hotels and condominiums, diners and bait shops stretches into Pine Knoll Shores. The origins of Atlantic Beach were simple by today's standards. Though visitors had journeyed by boat to its pavilions since the 1880s, progress arrived with a bridge from the main- land in 1928 and a campaign to draw visitors with a casino and bathhouses. This bustling seaside town, nourished on tourism, today hosts up to 30,000 people on a summer holiday weekend. Carteret County — and its ribbon of barrier island beaches — has come of age as a vacation destination. It's the midpoint on a coastline 320 miles long and ripe for tourism harvest, from the Outer Banks north of Atlantic Beach to the southern beaches below. Some say the growth and changes have been for the better. Tourism is the backbone of coastal economies. Where there had been few accommodations and no jobs, now there are both. In Dare County alone, Outer Banks tourism drives the retail sales and services, which top $500 million annually. "Tourism is going to be here," says Louise Dollard, a Dare County commissioner from Southern Shores. "That's the only way this place makes money. So it's obviously going to ; Others, like Best, say the changes have been for the worse. True, tourism has buoyed commu- nities that otherwise would have relied on commercial fishing and boatbuil
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookcollectionunclibra, booksubjectoceanography
