CRUDE, COPPERTONE(R), AND THE COAST - DEVELOPMENTAL CHANNELIZATION AND CONSTRAINT OF ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES

Southern Louisiana and southern Florida are characterized by the two m ost extensive coastal wetlands in the continental United States. These immense, seemingly hostile, and similar environments have experienced two very different directions of regional development. Louisiana deve loped much earlier, focusing initially on the extraction of renewable resources from the coastal marsh. Later, by the 1920s, the discovery o f oil and gas led to the rapid development of an offshore, nonrenewabl e extractive system that is literally unparalleled on the planet. In c ontrast, at the time of early settlement, southern Florida had fewer r ecognized renewable or nonrenewable resources; its development began l ater, centered around amenity use rather than consumptive use of resou rces. In spite of potentially massive economic benefits, Florida has b itterly fought recent attempts at offshore ail or gas exploitation, an d coastal tourism in Louisiana seems as unlikely as offshore developme nt in Florida. At the same time, however, there are significant challe nges to the continued vitality of both the oil-based economy of southe rn Louisiana and the tourism-based economy of southern Florida. The tw o contrasting cases provide examples of developmental channelization. On the one hand, once an area or region takes a given developmental di rection, both the process of specialization in a given primary activit y and the investment of human and economic capital in the capture of l inkages tied to that primary activity can set in motion a process that may effectively preclude other developmental options. On the other ha nd, a given course of development can also be pursued so intensively a s to bring about its demise.