The phenomenon is more pronounced when you zoom in to see how people are moving from neighborhood to neighborhood. When people think about climate change affecting migration, they might picture someone moving far from home to another part of the country. But that’s just a small slice of overall migration trends. The majority of people move within the same city, county, or metro area, Porter points out.
It makes a lot of sense. Climate change isn’t like The Day After Tomorrow, it’s gradual. People aren’t just going to move from the coast to Colorado to be the highest above water they can get. That’d be majority disruptive.
I live near wetlands that seem to wash out the road more often than I remember. If it ever got too bad, I can just move to the other side of town. There’s no need to say goodbye to my family, friends, job, where I grew up, my favorite places to hang out, etc and move to another city/state/country.
Nice article, wish it was longer. Thanks!
First time in Hawaii few months ago. Asked my friends’ local friends about the existential dread of being on a dot in the middle of nothing. They were chill Hawaiians about how they spoke… but the subject matter skipped straight to ‘oh yeah, we’re already losing islands in the Pacific. Towns just gone, underwater. Water level rising, we’ll be next’
My wife and I moved about 1,200 miles north due to climate change, reading forecasts and learning about water predictions where there won’t be water shortages in the next 50 years. We’re a couple hundred feet above sea level too. So far so good after 3+ years. We know that as it gets worse, everyone will keep moving up here. My home value rose over 130k so far in the last 3 years because of people moving here, and this is a poor New England area.
It’s strange to think that once prized waterfront property is going to end up a liability for many.
I’m glad you were able to get where you wanted to be at a good time!
My city has abandoned places. The house flooded so many times it got condemned. That seems to be the plan. Just keep letting water win.
Watch the insurance companies. They’re already pulling out of Florida. They extracted wealth from citizens for all this time, but they’re not going to stick around in places where they’ll have to pay mass claims due to repeated climate disasters.
I use this constantly when I try to talk to people who think climate change is a hoax. Out one side of their mouth they’ll say it’s all a hoax to make money, and then turn around and say the insurance companies are pulling out of Florida because of greed. I mean, yeah, it’s kind of out of greed but…
The insurance companies do not care about the politics of this issue, they aren’t “going woke” whatever that’s supposed to mean. They ARE greedy, and if they could make money in Florida, they would stick around and make money. Every mathematical model they have for calculating the income they can make from premiums versus the payments they would have to make due to natural disasters is starting to come up all frownie faces, so they’re leaving.
California too
I wonder how many people never came back to New Orleans after Katrina? That’s probably the first climate migration event in the U.S. that I can think of.
Residents moved out, Airbnbs moved in.
