Borger, Tobias

Urban shorelines provide a wide range of recreational opportunities for large populations and health benefits offered by blue space exposure. They also face development pressures that potentially close off low-cost open access as cities face challenges in maintaining public spaces. The multilayered governance structure that characterizes coastlines diffuse management responsibilities for any one priority. This study examines the diversity of anglers at one urban Californian shoreline where the socioeconomic mix differs markedly with the local jurisdiction responsible for management, highlighting the shoreline's regional value despite reduction in historical fishing amenities over time. A travel cost analysis estimates demand for fishing at the location as a function of income and racial/ethnic background across three trip scenarios representing the current state, expected future behavior, and expected behavior with a reopened nearby fishing pier, representing revealed and stated preference responses framed as a pseudo-panel dataset. Results reveal that shoreline fishing is a “normal" good for some groups but an “inferior" good for others, showing preference heterogeneity across socioeconomic backgrounds in contrast to conventional expectations. The value of a fishing trip to the site is on average $78.03 per individual. Visit demand, and therefore value, increases dramatically should the fishing pier reopen, with the greatest shift among the high-income anglers. The implications suggest that decisionmakers need to assess not only the significant nonmarket value generated by urban shoreline fishing but also the distributional impacts of managing a resource with low-cost public access benefiting underserved communities, both local and nonlocal. The distinct behavioral patterns in recreation in the urban blue space commons could be overlooked within cities focused only on their own demographics.