The Eastern Shore Is Not Broken. It Is Working Exactly as Designed.

Opinion | Cape Charles Mirror

Twenty-five years ago, I wrote a warning about the future of Virginia’s Eastern Shore. At the time, the region was increasingly embracing tourism as its economic salvation. I termed it “The Cape Maying of Cape Charles.” The promise was familiar: attract visitors, develop waterfront properties, encourage second-home ownership, promote our quaint little towns, expose it through trash publications like the Washington Post and Coastal Living, put Cape Charles on low-IQ shows like Beachfront Bargain Hunt, and turn our natural beauty into an economic engine.

I argued then that we should be careful what we wished for.

Rather than building an economy around visitors, vacation homes, and seasonal spending, the Eastern Shore should have been concentrating on something far less glamorous but infinitely more important: building a sustainable workforce economy. An economy where people could find meaningful employment, earn a decent living, purchase a home, raise their children, and remain in the communities where they grew up.

A quarter-century later, we are having precisely the conversations that should have been anticipated.

There are not enough homes for local families. Affordable workforce housing is increasingly difficult to find. Real estate prices have climbed beyond the reach of many working residents. Young people leave because opportunities are limited. Employers struggle to find workers. Retirees and second-home buyers arrive with purchasing power that local wages cannot match.

And everywhere, we hear the complaints.

What happened to our little towns? Why can’t teachers, police officers, restaurant employees, nurses, and young families afford to live here? Why are so many houses sitting empty for portions of the year? Why does every new development seem designed for someone who doesn’t actually work here?

The answer is uncomfortable.

Nothing necessarily went wrong. Much of what we are witnessing is the predictable outcome of the economic priorities we chose.

We Built a Destination, Not an Economy for Workers

For decades, tourism has been presented as the Eastern Shore’s great economic opportunity.

And by conventional measurements, that strategy has succeeded.

According to Virginia tourism figures, visitors spent approximately $267 million on the Eastern Shore in 2025, supporting about 1,857 jobs and generating $10.7 million in local tax revenue.

Those are impressive numbers, and tourism undeniably supports businesses and families throughout Accomack and Northampton counties.

But they do not tell the entire story.

Visitor spending is not the same thing as local prosperity. Tourism employment is not necessarily the same thing as a stable, year-round career. Rising property values are not necessarily evidence that the people who live here are becoming wealthier.

We have become remarkably good at measuring how much money visitors bring to the Shore. We have been far less successful at measuring whether the people who serve those visitors can afford to remain here.

A tourist economy needs restaurants, housekeepers, landscapers, retail clerks, maintenance workers, hospitality employees, and service providers. Yet many of these positions offer wages that struggle to compete with the housing market tourism helps create.

The contradiction should be obvious.

We have encouraged an economy that depends on workers while increasingly pricing those workers out of the communities where they are needed.

The Housing Crisis Was Predictable

Consider what happens when a rural coastal region becomes an attractive destination for retirees, vacationers, and second-home buyers.

Properties that once served as permanent residences become investment opportunities. Homes are purchased for occasional use. Others become short-term rentals. Waterfront and historic properties attract buyers with incomes, retirement savings, or home equity accumulated in far more expensive metropolitan markets.

Local buyers are no longer competing primarily against other local buyers.

They are competing against people whose purchasing power comes from somewhere else entirely.

This does not make newcomers villains. People have every right to retire where they wish, purchase vacation property, or enjoy the beauty of the Eastern Shore.

But economics does not care about good intentions.

When outside demand meets a limited housing supply, prices rise. When a home can generate substantial seasonal rental income, its value as an investment may exceed its value as a permanent residence. When property values rise faster than local wages, the people who depend on local employment lose purchasing power.

The result is not mysterious.

It is predictable.

And it was predictable 25 years ago.

A 2022 regional housing study identified significant housing shortages in both Accomack and Northampton counties, with estimates of at least 1,000 needed units in each county. Housing affordability, rental availability, and the deterioration of existing housing were already serious concerns.

These problems have additional causes, including construction costs, limited infrastructure, financing challenges, and an aging housing stock. Tourism did not create every problem.

But a development strategy that increases demand for housing without building a corresponding base of well-paying employment and attainable homes makes those problems more difficult to solve.

The Retirement Economy Has Its Own Consequences

The Eastern Shore has also become increasingly attractive to retirees.

Again, this is hardly surprising. The region offers beautiful scenery, relatively quiet communities, access to the water, and a slower pace of life.

Retirees contribute to the local economy. They volunteer, support civic organizations, purchase goods and services, and bring experience and resources into our communities.

But an economy increasingly oriented toward retirement has structural limitations.

Retirement income often originates elsewhere. It does not necessarily depend on the creation of local businesses that employ young people in professional, technical, or skilled occupations.

At the same time, retirees increase demand for healthcare, home maintenance, construction, transportation, and other services.

Who will provide those services?

Who will repair the homes, staff the medical offices, operate the ambulances, maintain the roads, and serve the restaurants?

And where will those workers live?

A community cannot sustain itself indefinitely by attracting people who have already made their living elsewhere while failing to create sufficient opportunities for those who must make their living here.

Eventually, the arithmetic catches up.

We Confused Development With Economic Development

One of the great mistakes in the Eastern Shore’s economic conversation has been treating real estate development as though it were synonymous with economic development.

They are not the same thing.

Building expensive homes generates construction activity. Selling waterfront property produces transactions. Vacation rentals create revenue. New residents contribute to the tax base.

These activities have economic value.

But they do not automatically create a diversified, productive economy capable of supporting successive generations of local families.

A subdivision of expensive homes is not a substitute for a thriving employment sector.

A restaurant district is not a substitute for industries that offer career advancement.

A booming real estate market is not necessarily a healthy local economy.

In fact, a community can experience rising property values, increasing visitor spending, and substantial private investment while becoming less affordable for the people who have lived and worked there for generations.

By some measures, it can appear increasingly prosperous even as its economic foundation becomes more fragile.

We should have understood that distinction decades ago.

The Economy We Should Have Built

The alternative was never to reject tourism.

The Eastern Shore’s beaches, waterfront communities, historic towns, agricultural landscapes, and natural resources were always going to attract visitors. Tourism could and should have been one component of a broader economy.

But it should not have become the defining ambition.

Twenty-five years ago, we should have been concentrating on building a workforce economy.

That meant supporting industries and businesses capable of providing stable, year-round employment with wages sufficient to support a family.

It meant investing in skilled trades, maritime industries, agriculture, seafood processing, advanced manufacturing, technology, healthcare, and small-business development.

It meant making broadband, education, vocational training, infrastructure, and entrepreneurship central to our economic strategy.

It meant recognizing that affordable housing is not simply a social program or a zoning issue. It is essential economic infrastructure.

Most importantly, it meant asking a different question.

Instead of asking how many visitors we could attract, we should have asked how many young families we could keep.

Instead of celebrating the price of waterfront real estate, we should have been measuring whether a local worker could purchase a modest home.

Instead of counting vacation rental nights, we should have been counting sustainable careers.

Instead of asking how to make the Eastern Shore more attractive to outsiders, we should have been asking how to make it economically viable for the people already here.

Those are very different priorities, and they produce very different communities.

The Irony of Our Current Debate

Today, much of the public discussion centers on how to fix the problems that accompany the economy we spent decades encouraging.

We need more affordable housing.

We need workforce housing.

We need more young families.

We need employees for our restaurants and businesses.

We need teachers, nurses, police officers, tradespeople, and emergency responders who can afford to live in the communities they serve.

All true.

But these are not isolated problems that suddenly appeared. They are interconnected consequences of economic decisions, market incentives, and development priorities that accumulated over decades.

Now we are attempting to solve them one zoning amendment, one housing proposal, and one development application at a time.

There is a certain irony in promoting a destination economy for decades and then expressing surprise when the destination becomes too expensive for its workforce.

There is another irony in celebrating rising real estate values while lamenting that young local families cannot afford to purchase homes.

And perhaps the greatest irony is that we continue to measure economic success using many of the same indicators that helped create the imbalance.

More visitors. More spending. Higher property values. More investment.

But prosperity for whom?

Be Careful What You Wish For

None of this means the Eastern Shore should stop welcoming tourists, retirees, or new residents.

Nor does it mean tourism has brought nothing of value. It has supported businesses, preserved historic properties, generated tax revenue, and helped revitalize communities that once struggled economically.

Those benefits are real.

But so are the costs and tradeoffs.

The problem was never that tourism existed. The problem was expecting a visitor-oriented economy to perform the functions of a diversified workforce economy.

It was expecting seasonal service employment to support year-round housing costs.

It was expecting rising real estate values to benefit everyone equally.

It was expecting a community increasingly marketed as a place to visit, vacation, or retire to remain equally accessible to the people who needed to work there.

Those expectations were never economically sound.

Twenty-five years ago, I warned that we should be careful what we wished for.

Today, when I hear complaints about unaffordable homes, disappearing opportunities for young families, workforce shortages, too many second homes, and the changing character of our towns, I am reminded of that warning.

The Eastern Shore did not simply stumble into this situation.

We spent decades promoting many of the conditions that made it possible.

And now, having achieved much of what we set out to achieve, we seem surprised by the results.

The Eastern Shore is not necessarily experiencing the failure of its economic vision. It is experiencing the consequences of that vision’s success.

The question now is whether we are willing to build something more substantial than a destination.

Because a place can be wonderful to visit, beautiful to retire in, and profitable to invest in — and still become an increasingly difficult place to make a living.

And if the people who work here can no longer afford to live here, we should ask ourselves what kind of prosperity we have actually created.

About the Author

Wayne Creed

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