As climate fears mount, some are relocating within the US

Weird take.

Isn’t the right answer “build as much housing/infrastructure in ‘safe’ areas as possible and do as little investment as possible on the ‘unsafe’ areas?”

People moving to Florida are doing the exact opposite of that.

Or maybe new ice age is coming.

While it may cause a lot of economic damage, I don't think the location of the coasts will change dramatically.

https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/ipcc_far_wg_...

> People moving to Florida doesn't contradict anything.

I wouldn't mind moving to FL, weather is great and I like the location for boating. But FL is very low and rising sea level is going to cause lots of problems, so I can't bring myself to invest any kind of money in real estate in FL if it's going to be flooding in a few decades.

We're looking to move and we're absolutely limiting our options to places we think won't burn down and will have water 30 years from now.

I can't talk about USA but personally I move from a major Italian city toward French Alps also (witch means, not only) for climate. My original city is not much suffering so far, floods happen sometimes but not in the part of the city I was living, but hot summer simply became too long and hot for my taste while winter rainy weather with now almost no snow is less and less appealing.

I have had various reasons, not just climate, I also want to live outside the city I consider about to became sky open prisons with density problems become so big and broad that they outweigh the benefits of being near, I also want nature etc. But climate was a part of the decision.

Not so many but others I know have made or are evaluating different relocation also for climatic reasons. So well, for us in the south/central Europe for now there is no much internal migration due to climate change, but start to happen and to be discussed not in talk show and interested lobby-setups but on casual middle-class citizens topics.

People are absolutely moving because of weather. The PNW has had terrible summers for about the past 5 years. Before there were decades of great mild summer weather, often July, Aug, Sept. These past few years there were smoke concentrations at deadly levels. Not just from one forest fire. Multiple fires every year. This is separate from the danger of a fire burning your house down. My coastal area wasn't right next to a fire, it was hundreds of miles away. The weather patterns were pulling air from the interior to the coast. If you live in Washington, Oregon, or northern California you were endangering your life if went outside. My nextdoor neighbor told me he was moving to get away from that. This was 2 years ago. Since then it has gotten worse. We've thought of selling our mountain cabin. Instead of the summer, people say our 4th season is the smoke season, only half jokingly.

At the same time, people keep moving here because we have so many jobs. There aren't that many people moving away, but lots more talk about it. I think about another 5 years will really accelerate the trend. We all know there have been historical times when there was some smoky air. Even Mark Twain wrote about it when he visited Seattle more than 100 years ago. Now it's happening every year, with severe impact. All my friends bought air conditions for the first time including me, and we also have air cleaners and air quality gauges for our inside air.

Exporting poor people while importing homeless people.

I haven't been able to find data like that to show if they are poor or wealthy.

I suspect poor is the only demographic not moving, which is a general migration rule. Moving costs $. Folks like Elon Musk moving to Texas probably brought significant numbers of wealthy folks with him.

Not to mention, when work from home became an option. The elites of california moved to texas. Perhaps it was poor people before, during covid that changed would be my guess.

>2021 data or the 2020 census? The latter is frankly poor quality data. I wouldn't use it as a primary source.

What arguments do you have suggesting it's poor quality?

Also I'm not sure there's any good arguments. It's obvious covid restrictions easing in florida and texas quite early and might I say successfully will play a significant role in why this happened.

Not to mention the significant economic windfall that they will gain for having done so.

Humans are really good at ignoring that their leaders who say one thing and do another.

For wealthy people who can afford multiple properties, and to up and move whenever they please, why would rising sea levels matter to them? Both properties could collapse into a sinkhole tomorrow and it would be a mere annoyance. The fact they own them is no evidence they aren't aware that they might not be around in 50 years. For someone looking for a second property, closing on retirement, worrying about inheritance for their children, the thought process is entirely different.

Thanks for providing the article. That's a pretty grim series of visuals.

Having enough money to buy something else when it's underwater isn't the same thing.

That's just "be rich", which is a solution to many problems.

The reaction to Climate Change seems to be more along the lines of "pretend it doesn't exist" or "I'd rather die than change my lifestyle" than "let's hire a bunch of software developers to make sure this crisis doesn't end society as we know it".

Human as in humanity.

The last two wild fire seasons made it clear that, for (2), you'll need to move a lot further than a few hundred miles to avoid climate change. Most of the US will have severe (the type that kill people) climate issues according to current projections.

There are fireproof structures, people in eastern Washington are starting to build them in small numbers. Concrete building material, don't build it surrounded by trees and bushes. Fireproof window stuff.

Can you explain what you mean?

Both are big assumptions. Wildfires are already affecting the PNW and northern California extensively. SoCal does not have them because there are deserts in the east, not forest.

There is a lot of fuel left to burn.

There's the earthquake risk along the west coast...

I am not a fan of more suburban sprawl which is what it sounds like you're advocating for. So, no thank you. Instead we should focus on building walkable neighborhoods that have higher density, less reliance on cars, and more emphasis on cycling+walking+public transit.

Why it's bad:

Suburbia is subsidized (many articles on HN similar to this video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI

Climate change effects and other: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO6txCZpbsQ

Affordable housing is housing that is passed down from generation to generation. We don't need to build "affordable housing". We need to build good high quality housing that will then get transferred down to other people through sales. (And with proper land value taxes - these will not be appreciating assets)

> Real estate investors and developers ... fight affordable housing initiatives every step of the way

I don't think affordable-housing is actually considered a real "threat" to private developers in most of the nation, but suppose that it were.

Imagine that you had a business. The government says they'd like to fund a competitor.

It's not just any competitor! This new competitor will be empowered to use a ton of tax money to compete with you. This competitor will be headed by someone who is politically connected. The politically connected owner will be able to take a fat cut of this tax money, and donate it back to the political machine, to fortify their position. They can expect a cozy relationship with regulators and special approvals you can't get. If you're unlucky they will add legislation passed to support their business while hindering yours.

And, of course, their allies will insult you as villainous, greedy, and unreasonable. (Which you may be! And yet...)

Would you fight all of that, or would you embrace it?

— And if you think government projects aren't lousy with a corrupt politically-connected fat cats skimming money off the top, well, I have a delightful bridge to sell you!

Need to also expand beyond the coast which will be prone to flooding in the future.

Do you go outside when it's raining? Blizzard? Hailing? Cat 4 winds? Probably not. Treat it the same. Go out for when you need to.

Idk why we treat smoke so differently than a blizzard or other such natural phenomena. I'm guessing it's because your home isn't airtight and so it actually affects you a lot more than when it's just raining - cause - surprise - homes are built to be watertight.