Title: Profits and politics in paradise : the development of Hilton Head Island /
Authors: Danielson, Michael N.; Danielson, Patricia R. F.
Publisher: University of South Carolina Press,
Year: 1995
Subjects: Planned communities South Carolina Sea Pines Plantation History.; Planned communities South Carolina Hilton Head Island History.; City planning South Carolina Sea Pines Plantation History.; Retirement communities South Carolina Hilton Head Island History.; Recreation areas South Carolina Hilton Head Island History.; Resorts South Carolina Hilton Head Island History.; City planning South Carolina Hilton Head Island History.; Hilton Head Island (S.C.) History.; Sea Pines Plantation (Hilton Head, S.C.) History.
Abstract: Just north of where the Savannah River flows into the Atlantic lies an idyllic stretch of beach, marsh, and forest known as Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. In the 1950s, Charles Fraser transformed this almost forgotten barrier island into one of America's premier vacation destinations and, in doing so, invented the modern resort and retirement community. In this case study of that archetypal development and the others that followed on Hilton Head Island, Michael N. Danielson explores the interplay of private power and public authority as well as the dilemma of growth in America's recreation-based communities. Danielson contends that Hilton Head offers fertile ground for evaluating the influence of private elites and public officials on largely self-contained resort and retirement communities, an increasingly important but previously unexamined component of urban growth in America. Identifying growth as the island's central political issue, Danielson submits that resorts like Hilton Head face the similar predicament - the reality that economic expansion alters the very attributes that attracted developers, residents, and vacationers to a particular locale. His case study illustrates the impact of growth on the economic and political fortunes of a geographic area and the residents living in it.
Contents: Ripe for development -- Uncommon vision -- Developing Sea Pines plantation -- Beyond the Sea Pines gates -- Benevolent dictators -- Plantations and people -- Growing pains -- Across the bridge -- In their own hands -- Second fall of the plantations -- A friend in court -- The new Hilton Head -- Preserving paradise -- Private and public communities.