On the shining Big-Sea-Water

I have followed a dispute in my hometown with keen interest over the past two years. Two Harbors, Minnesota and environs is home to 5000 people at most, a port town on the shore of Lake Superior whencefrom the first shipload of Minnesota iron ore departed in the 1880s. The Duluth, Missabe, & Iron Range railroad fueled the town's growth, and owned most of the waterfront, including the handsome old lighthouse. The point is one of the few places on the rugged north shore where you can still get your toes wet without park pass or trespass.
Not long ago, a holding company acquired the railroad that had acquired the DM&IR, or some such baroque arrangement, and that owner commenced liquidation of most non-productive assets. The lighthouse itself, and a fine boat launch and dock built a decade ago were already secured in public ownership. But the wooded acres behind the lighthouse, where local volunteers had built a fine trail that grants a remarkably remote sense of this coastline, fell into private hands. The new owner, a Twin Cities based developer, intended a large condo complex, shops, and restaurants.

Remarkably, local resistance flared up and stayed lit. The city, which had probably dropped the ball by not acquiring this parcel in the first place, did not rubber stamp the developer's ambitions. Plenty of local debate ensued, and the usual gaggle of simple-minded graderheads advocated unbridled property rights and the virtues of ephemeral ticky-tacky. But the city council recently voted to deny the developer the zoning change he sought. Somewhere, quietly, a few lawyers felt their appetites quicken at the promise of a skirmish. But for the moment, a small town with plenty of tourism charm has taken a stand that, if successful, will look mighty wise fifty, seventy, one hundred years from now. By resisting to trade precious lakefront for a paltry dose of property taxes contributed by weekenders who buy their booze and groceries elsewhere, Two Harbors has averted killing the goose that lays the golden egg.