Thoughts on Orange Beach Alabama

Everything I observed in Orange Beach, Alabama was colored by my experiences as a frequent visitor to the North Carolina coast and to the Brunswick County beaches in particular. In North Carolina high rise condos are rare. A quick internet search revealed only two: Grand Villas in Indian Beach and Atlantic Towers in Carolina Beach. Most developed beaches in North Carolina feature family beach cottages, the largest usually three stories, usually behind the first dune. Also, in North Carolina, the “dry sand” area (from high tide to the dunes) of all beaches belong to the public. The “wet sand” area and the surf belong to the state. It is impossible to privately own a beach in North Carolina, although developers and individuals try to get around this law from time to time. One such case is Figure Eight Island. The entire Island is private and can be accessed by car only by crossing a guarded causeway bridge. Uninvited guests can only walk the beach after swimming across the short inlet from Wrightsville Beach. Here is a good description of North Carolina’s public beach law, with references.

In South Carolina gated communities are allowed to have exclusive access to a beach, most notably in Hilton Head. I have visited beaches in Myrtle Beach that were nominally public, but the pattern of private ownership and road networks allowed no place for the public to park. North Carolina, or at least Long Beach, where I often visit, does a good job of distributing small public parking lots among the private parcels.

In an hour of internet searching, I was unable to find much real information about the beaches of Alabama, Mississippi, and the Florida panhandle. Is it possible to privately own a beach on the US Gulf coast?  Some developments (such as Romar House, which I will get to later) use the term “private beach” in their advertising, but the real meaning is unclear. And I assume some renourishment is ongoing, but how much and how often?

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection extols the benefits of beach renourishment, but does not give details about where and how often it is carried out.

The Alabama Department of Environmental Management appears to be the primary management agency for the beaches in that state, but their website presents no information about renourishment and focuses primarily on water quality issues. Here is another opinion about beach development and renourishment from the infamous coastal geologist Orrin Pilkey.

 My wife and I took our kids and spent New Year’s Eve weekend in Orange Beach, Alabama. The oceanfront of Orange Beach consists almost entirely of high-rise condos, with perhaps a half dozen beach cottages in the mix, along state highway 182. Just beyond the chain of strip malls on the inland side of the highway lies the 6,150 acre Gulf State Park. The Park punches through to the beach at two points along the strip of condos, and at the western point the Park runs along the beach for two entire undeveloped miles. Gulf State park provides not only ample parking for the public, but showers and bathrooms as well.

We stayed at a very affordable condo at the western end of Cotton Bayou adjacent to the other (eastern) Gulf State Park beach access. The Bayou is connected to the Gulf of Mexico by Perdido Pass, not far from the AL/FL state line. One day we saw a dolphin splashing in the bayou. We also saw great blue herons and an Osprey.

We visited friends who were staying at the Pheoxix IV condos, in the middle of the strip. Here is a picture of the swimming pool from the balcony of the fourteenth floor.

 When I saw this, I was immediately reminded of the logo for the Rebel Alliance from the Star Wars movies:

This image of Luke Skywalker comes from a website devoted to Star Wars helmets.

Most of the condos left exterior lights on after dark. In North Carolina, this is a big no-no, as it confuses the sea turtles. Even if the sea turtles came ashore, however, they would not have access to the dunes, for they were all fenced off. But the turtles did of course have easy access to the two miles of beach at Gulf State Park, just down the road.

Here is a picture of the afore-mentioned Romar House, just next door to the Phoenix IV, at dusk. Note that the exterior lights are on. But also, more noteworthy to me anyway, is the sign, several meters out from their boardwalk, claiming the beach as private property.

 And here is a shot of the same sign in context from above, with some children (some of whom are my children) included for scale:

So whose beach is it?

I don't have anything against beach condos, really. I suppose their density allows more people to experience the beach than is the case in North Carolina. I marvel at how they stay in place that close to the water. Why don't they sink? This was only my third trip to the Gulf Coast and I probably got a few things wrong in this report. I look forward to going back and learning more about the area.

More Thoughts on Google Street View

I don't play video games, unless you count Google Earth Street View. For me, GESV is a fun way to explore landscapes and think about configuration and form. The quest for images with strong composition and interesting subject matter is a scavenger hunt. The moment of discovery is the reward. In rural areas, I am looking for interesting forms. In urban areas I am usually looking for life in the street, which usually means people. One of the principal problems discussed in Landscape Architecture is how to bring life to the street. Designing cities for people is the focus of New Urbanism and groups like The Project for Public Spaces. In our landscape architecture classes we discuss walkability, sense of place, and read a lot of stuff by Peter Calthorpe, Andres Duany and Kevin Lynch. It's all about people in public space and the human experience of spaces. Generally, nice photographs of public space or street space features lots of people experiencing the space. In Landscape Architecture magazine, Landscape Architects become perplexed when the public fails to utilize a well-designed space or when a poorly designed space gets a lot of use. I remember a particular example of a simple field of artificial turf, but I don't have time at the moment to track it down.

Google Earth Street View shows you the other side, the reality (of a sort). Drop in from the Google Earth Eye of God into any street grid and chances are you will find it empty. If you peruse randomly, it could be a very long time before you see any people at all. If you do this often enough, you develope a sense of what configuration of streets are more likely to yield human forms. Grid or wagon-wheel configurations, usually indicating the oldest part of the city, are generally better candidates. The professors always tell us "pay attention to the corners," and this holds true in GE, especially corners near open space. Areas along rivers, or, more likely, a block or two from the river, are good candidates. I believe GESV could be used in an exercise in a Landscape Architecture class. The instructor could present the student with a short list of things to find: somebody sitting down, somebody on a bicycle, a child under twelve, etc. The student would learn to recognize from the air how to "read" the landscape, find the mass transit system, the arteries, and the nodes.

Here is a blog in which someone has found a little story in the street in GE Street View. A woman is walking and trips and falls. If you look closely, you can see the chunk of rock that she tripped on. She stays on all fours for a moment but eventually stands up. Yesterday you could see her quite clearly, but today, perhaps because the internet found out about her, it appears that Google has pixellated her. More interesting (to me anyway) is that this is a street with a surprising amount of life in it. In fact, if you continue down the street, you find eleven more people sitting on the sidewalk. They appear to be a little scruffy, as if sitting on the sidewalk is about all they have been doing and all they intend to do for the day. Some of them are watching the woman trip and fall. It is a little vignette played out on a street in Brazil. Perhaps not exactly the kind of 'life" the urban planners want, but it is alive.