I think a lot of shore homes damaged by Sandy weren’t owned by wealthy people at all; they were tax refugees from northeastern NJ who traded long commutes for a lower cost of living. Of course, on the news they show the multimillion oceanfront properties damaged (and those won’t end up looking ugly - they’d probably just be rebuilt better). The ones with huge stairways leading up to the front doors seemed more modest - and weren’t “on the beach”.
The Jersey Shore experienced a trend that also played out in western NJ where middle-class people fled there for lower costs and ended up rubbing elbows with year-round people of more limited means already living there; in western NJ there had been seasonal vacation homes in the woods and hills that were being replaced by year-round homes for those tax refugees (as well as some wealthy people).
Jersey Shore is different than CT’s “Gold Coast”.
Unfortunately, the kids with those "elements" attached to them were ALSO part of this migration. That made for easy preying on the good kids, who were parentless from 2:30-7pm. The result was a spike in Pocono gang activity. In certain cases the gangs were in residential developments where local police couldn't get in because the developers told them "nothing here..move along...we got it" because they didn't want this problem getting out in the open.