why are so few 'good' ones?

inspired by this Eastbourne pier fire, and the desperate Tory anti-UKIP funding for coastal towns (here, have a link http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/aug/01/eastbourne-pier-2m-restoration-fire-conservatives-ukip-seaside-towns)

have been thinking about this a lot recently. when/if i eventually leave the big city, i'd quite like to live in a large town/medium city on the coast somewhere. some of my favourite cities are on the coast: Barcelona, San Francisco, Lisbon. mostly in sunnier places, but heck, the south coast's nice and the North Sea coast is generally pretty dry, and quite nice in summer

so why are the towns so bad? outside of somewhere like Brighton, there aren't really any good-sized, well-regarded coastal towns and cities. sure, there are some big estuary towns, like Edinburgh, Liverpool, Bristol. but there's nowhere that has the hint of holiday resort alongside proper, functional city. why the crap is this? where's the British Barcelona, the Welsh New York, the Scottish Istanbul? is it just cause we're so down on the weather

ITT: tell me why coastal Britain's so crap, or tell me why it isn't, or recommend some nice places on the coast that are actually quite nice, and quite big and functional, where all your services aren't 30 miles away in Norwich or something