Life-saving protection, which covers 24 of the 50 miles of largely developed oceanfront in the two counties, was stalled in many areas by defiant beachfront and business owners, multiple local governments and a fractured shore-protection system that allowed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of individuals to decide how, when, where, and even if, beaches and dunes should be built. For decades, local politics have trumped statewide initiatives simply because of their numbers: 566 municipalities, 585 school districts and 21 counties, each dependent on local property tax money for survival.