[rtpg]

What if Bill Gates bought the entire coastline? How does that help society?

Society has relatively little to gain from letting the super rich buy up fundamentally scarce bits of land like this. Meanwhile making it public access means way more people can appreciate the beach. Not like this VC is on the beach most of the time anyways.

[alistairSH]

Pretty sure OP left off the <sarcasm> tags.

[gotrecruit]

Hmm, not to say I disagree, but let's say hypothetically, instead of providing general public access to the beach, which is obviously a pity, the entire coastline was sold at the appropriate price. The money, in theory, could go into improving local infrastructure, etc, which may lead to an improvement in quality of life for people living in that area. I'm not saying that would happen, just entertaining the possibility that your proposed scenario could be positive.

[vidarh]

It could, but once sold it might never again be accessible to the public.

I prefer the Scandinavian approach: Non built up land can be freely accessed by anyone regardless of owner in most cases, and the coast is by default protected against people building down to it in Norway at least. Dispensations do get given, but if you block access without applying for planning consent, it will be struck down.

The basis is simple: Restricting access to a scarce resource like the land is equivalent to taking away or liberty. This is a right we've had since time immemorial - in Sweden it's a constitutional right. In Norway it was not codified into law until the 60's as it used to be seen as so self-evident that it wasn't necessary.