Springsteen wrote Sandy after racial riots had ravished what was left of AP, and with lines like “This boardwalk life for me is through,” he’s planting the theme of escape that would be more fully realized in his next album—specifically, Thunder Road (“it’s a town full of losers and I’m pulling out of here to win”) and Born to Run (“Baby this town rips the bones from your back/It’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap/We gotta get out while we’re young”).

Because over the years, Asbury Park in many ways has embodied the challenges affecting the entire country, your premise is right on.

Years later, and becoming a Bruce fan, I grappled with it again, and found a kind of beauty in its tumbledown facade. You’re dead right in saying, this song is about the end of something, whether real or imagined, as the narrarator makes clear when he tells Sandy to “[l]ove me tonight [—] for I may never see you again.”