From New England to Puerto Rico, across the Gulf of America, skipping over the desert to the West Coast…the vast American coastline is littered with closed and abandoned shipyards.
They surround us like ghosts haunting the ruins of a once great empire, whispering of what once was.
Some have been repurposed so much it would require a national emergency to claw back the waterfront. Others only a bit, and another cohort almost frozen in aspic from the day they were closed.
Every time there is a proposal to do something as straightforward as reviving Charleston or something more ambitious like Jan Sramek’s Solano Shipyard, those trying to make forward progress have to swim through a sea of excuses, defeatism, obstructive regulations, or outright greed from those who want to turn industrial future into just another mixed-use development for empty nesters—nationalizing national security risk and privatizing profit.
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