The history of it would be interesting to learn

Edit: someone found a loophole and it got grandfathered.

https://www.opb.org/news/article/history-oregon-tom-mccall-p...

I love public coasts. Land in the US West in general was also divvied out much more as public in general.

It helps though that beaches are of only limited developmental value.

In Switzerland all lake shores are public land. And most of them (most of the usable parts at least) are fenced out by local prominent people owning villas nearby, and nobody moves a finger about it because as I said they are prominent (politicians, TV stars, Tina Turner...). And when I mean nobody I really mean nobody - there aren't even teenagers rebelling, it looks like an societary accepted evil.

Sometimes the beaches are public, but the rich try to block access: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/01/08/califor...