a) Build the property to withstand all but 1-2 statistically expected hurricanes within that N year period. This is possible, it's just costly.
b) You don't get public funds
c) You get private insurance
d) You don't build
Much of the housing was built in the 50s. It was definitely low quality, including such issues as bad electrical grounding and about as many cockroaches there are stars above. At least, that's how I felt as a kid, anyways.
But, it was made of concrete and had steel storm doors. The biggest issue for us was flooding (we were at the bottom of a hill) but newer structures tended to be on stilts or have a sacrificial first floor. This was true both on and off base.
Rents off base apparently are pretty cheap by US standards. And this is with a climate akin to that of Hawaii with beaches nearby.
So it's possible to build well and be cheap.
No doubt with N carefully calibrated to depopulate the parts of the country you don't like, but not the part you live in.
The west coast has too many earthquakes, depopulate it!
N is carefully calibrated by actuaries with hard data. Insurance companies stopped offering flood insurance to much of Florida decades ago - they're now covered by a federally subsidized program called the NFIP that has about five million policies. It has been a money pit since 2004 for obvious reasons.
California got plenty of federal funds to rebuild after the Northridge quake and what did the state do? It spent the next four years improving building codes - benefiting the entire country - and plowed the money into seismic retrofits. When >90% of home insurers pulled out, instead of depending on a federal program, the state created the California Earthquake Authority which is almost entirely privately funded within the state. I have no doubt the next big earthquake will require federal assistance but there hasn't been a major incident in nearly thirty years and the state, insurers, and homeowners have done a lot to mitigate future catastrophe.
The same thing is happening now in California with wildfires: many people in rural areas can only get insurance through the California FAIR Plan. The big difference is that the FAIR Plan is funded entirely through premiums and state funds. Very little if any federal funding goes to it because Trump turned it into a hot button issue just a few years ago. That's the one to watch out for, not earthquakes.
Edit: phrasing
Say goodbye to Pakistan.
I'd love to see the HN crowd that is championing the premise stand up and proclaim all the areas of the globe that people should no longer be allowed to live, huge swaths of which will be in hyper impoverished areas of India, China, Pakistan. They won't dare.
Who's talking about allowing anything? The debate is about whether these people will be subsidised.
Admittedly there's also grinding poverty in parts of Florida so I appreciate the comparison; that's a good hole in my argument.
Should we provide compensation for Floridians to move to safer areas? Yes.
Should we provide compensation for Pakistan for improved flood management? Yes.
Should Pakistanis or Floridians rebuild in the exact same places and the same ways where they've been building? No, unfortunately nobody gets that luxury. That's the horrible thing about climate change - we have very few options and they all have major downsides but we don't get to opt out. Florida's going to experience massive flooding regularly and Pakistan will face the same, and either populations in both areas adapt in some fashion (build for floods or move) or continue to experience mass devastation when the inevitable occurs.
I don't get to dictate where people live any more than I get to dictate where the flood waters go. It's heartbreaking but that's the world we're stuck in.