I think another problem the US suffers from is that everything is up for sale. The state doesn't reserve area's for the public good very often. I think that in places like the UK, France and NL the state in principle owns ALL water(coast) front property and reserves it for general use except for a few exceptions. They never sell this property but rather rent it out and force right of overpath. This means that as a sailing club (a societal benefit) can get a permit for exploitation of a sailing club right next to a commericial enterprise and NOT have to pay the same rent. The state (and local governments) regards sailing clubs as enrichment of the locale and is willing to stimulate it / help it out.

In the US everything goes to the highest bidder and eventually you end up with very poor diversity and very few area's reserved for the common good. End result this area's are highly contested as well.

I think this is one of those area's where EU and US take on government differ fundamentally. The US call such involvement of government bordering on totalitarianism, in the EU we just go sailing from our beach side parking and ignore the retorical BS. Afterall in a democracy the government is us, isn't it ?

Wouter