Long Beach is a neighborhood on the coast of Rockport, Massachusetts that was developed on top of a sandy barrier beach. Unlike most neighborhoods, the seasonal cottages at Long Beach are owned by individuals and families, while the land underneath the cottages is owned by the Town of Rockport. Cottage owners lease the land from the Town of Rockport in ten-year increments. These lease agreements provide critical revenue for the Town of Rockport. They have also become increasingly contested due to the impacts of the climate emergency.

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On Long Beach, the decay of public infrastructure, inflated construction costs, increasingly extreme weather, biodiversity loss, and the failure to mitigate climate change intersect. Decision-making in the polycrisis requires a synthetic understanding of how potential risks and solutions interact with each other. At Long Beach this provides an opportunity to make adaptation decisions that can potentially mitigate risk to life and property, address the housing crisis in Rockport, and restore the barrier beach ecosystem.

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This report is organized in two parts: Long Beach Is...? and Long Beach Could Be...? These parts can be read as a single report from cover to cover, or separately, depending on the level of interest of the reader.

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Long Beach Is...? is a cultural landscape story that describes how Long Beach has changed physically, ecologically, and culturally since colonization, how Long Beach is changing now, and how Long Beach will continue to change in the future due to the impacts of climate change. This chapter uses archival maps, municipal reports, photographs, and architectural drawings to illustrate the ongoing story of waves, weather, plants, animals, and people in the Long Beach landscape over thousands of years.

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Long Beach Could Be...? is a place-based scenario planning exercise that describes and compares six plausible, alternative futures for the neighborhood. This chapter uses architectural drawings and mapping to prompt decision-makers toward climate adaptation choices in the near future.

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Project Team: Kira Bre Clingen (PI), Mathew Lioe