Interesting article. My reactions to it are a confused mix. On the one hand I can well understand the ties to the land in a community with a long history like that. I know oyster towns and I know oyster people. Spent three seasons on a Maryland skipjack living in a town with 44 people left (and there are less now, of both skipjacks and residents). When I was working on the tug Mustang we occasionally pushed a barge up the canal from the eastern shore and dropped it up the Maurice, so I got a good view all along those Southern jersey coasts. Which is the other side of my reaction: it's a place you would build a home under a certain sort of economic incentive, but it's not really a great place to live. The economic incentives are pretty much gone, so the amateur historian in me says these towns are going to dry up. I can't fault the state in this case for not wanting to keep holding back the water.
