Is Your City Next? How Climate Change Is Forcing a Mass American Migration

Will You Be Forced to Move? The Hidden Realities of Climate Displacement in America

Will your home survive the next decade? Read our summary of The Great Displacement by Jake Bittle to understand how climate change is reshaping the US real estate market, insurance industry, and migration patterns for millions of Americans.

Are you unknowingly investing in a future disaster zone? Don’t wait until the water is at your doorstep. Order your copy of The Great Displacement to understand the risks facing your community and how to prepare for the inevitable shift in the American landscape.

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For many Americans, climate change is an immediate problem. As policy-makers and business leaders strive to curb future carbon emissions, thousands of Americans are fleeing from the effects of extreme weather. Offering the results of his extensive research, climate writer Jake Bittle chronicles the experiences of communities and individuals grappling with wildfires, rising oceans, and drought-stricken farmland. Bittle examines the market forces and public policies that led to development in risky areas, people’s efforts to rebuild after weather-related disasters, and residents’ agonizing decisions about whether to abandon vulnerable regions.

Take-Aways

• More Americans may soon flee areas vulnerable to climate-related disasters.
• No one can prevent certain climate change consequences.
• Market forces influence the development of and retreat from vulnerable areas.
• Government policy increasingly emphasizes helping people leave at-risk locales.
• By around 2050, housing displacement will be the most common consequence of climate change.

Summary

More Americans may soon flee areas vulnerable to climate-related disasters.

Extreme weather events – including hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and drought – and other consequences of climate change are hammering the United States with increasing frequency.

“It will take decades for these movements to coalesce, but once they do, they will reshape the demographic geography of the United States.”

As the century progresses, millions will have to leave vulnerable locales, including coastal regions and areas facing threats from heat, natural disasters, and water shortages. How such an enormous migration will unfold depends on the intensity of climate-related conditions, as well as on evolving government policies and market pressures.

No one can prevent certain climate change consequences.

Many regions are seeking to reduce their carbon emissions. The European Union, for example, aims to cut emissions by more than half by 2030. China plans to reach net-zero emissions in a similar time frame. But even if the world restricts warming to an additional 1.50C above preindustrial levels, many consequences are already assured.

“The result will be a shambling retreat from mountain ranges and flood-prone riverbeds, back from the oceans, and out of the desert.”

Sea levels will climb six feet or more. Warming ocean waters will drive increasingly severe storms. Extreme heat will make regions of Central America, Asia, and Africa inimical to human life.

In recent years, communities in the United States have suffered these climate-related calamities.

• Floods – With sea levels rising and hurricanes becoming more severe, coastal regions are susceptible to devastating floods. Communities around Chesapeake Bay, the Florida Keys, and the Louisiana bayou have suffered flood damage. Some danger comes from extreme storms such as Hurricane Irma, which pummeled the Keys in 2017. Some comes from constant sea rise, which will eventually subsume areas such as the Keys, with their average three-foot elevation above sea level. By 2100, the ocean will swallow many, or all, of the region’s islands.
• Wildfires – During an extended drought, the vegetation on forest floors dries out, leaving the ground desiccated and less able to absorb heat as temperatures increase. This provides a perfect breeding ground for wildfires. For example, in recent years enormous blazes have destroyed thousands of California homes.
• Drought – In contrast to floods’ and fires’ swift, concentrated destruction, drought is a slowly unfolding disaster that affects large regions. It sets the stage for other disasters, including wildfires and heat waves, such as the deadly 2021 heat dome that baked the Pacific Northwest. The American West has experienced drought for the last two decades.

Market forces influence the development of and retreat from vulnerable areas.

The history of Houston illustrates how the market drove housing development in numerous other risky areas. Following the 1973 oil embargo, Houston boomed as a source of domestic oil, and the formerly medium-sized city grew quickly.

When the city center had no more space for new buildings, developers acquired land on the outskirts for new subdivisions. With no zoning regulations as guardrails, the city sprawled into former grasslands. Developers built homes, roads, and concrete structures. These developments eliminated a natural drainage system that had kept floodwaters out of the city. For example, many neighborhoods around Houston flooded in 2017 when Hurricane Harvey dumped more than 50 inches of rain in three days.

In the 1970s, developers built the Woodland Trails West subdivision about a half-hour’s drive from Houston’s downtown. The local government had modified nearby White Oak Bayou in the late 1960s to protect against flooding, but Woodland Trails West extended to the edge of that bayou. In 2001, when Tropical Storm Allison dropped some 20 inches on rain on Houston, the Woodland Trails West neighborhood flooded. The water rose to seven feet in some places.

“The rapid outward pace of real estate development had slammed up against the immovable facts of nature, creating urban and suburban landscapes that faced perennial risk from flooding.”

In California, with its chronic housing shortage, a wildfire that destroys neighborhoods sends the prices of nearby unharmed housing soaring. After the 2017 Tubbs Fire roared through Sonoma, Napa, and Solano counties, the prices for remaining homes rose as much as 30% in days.

Private insurance creates problems for homeowners. For example, in California, fire insurance was profitable for insurers as long as firefighters could keep wildfires from reaching residential areas. But when larger fires spread and consumed entire neighborhoods, the homeowners were in a bind. Most of their insurance policies covered only small fire incidents like electrical fires. In cases of the complete destruction of a home, insurance wasn’t enough to cover rebuilding.

“The ones who are stuck are the middle-class homeowners, the people who emptied their savings to buy a home and can’t afford to take out a second mortgage until they off-load the first one.”

As fires grew increasingly destructive and frequent, costs mounted. California’s combined 2017 and 2018 fire seasons resulted in claims of more than $12 billion. Insurance companies raised premiums and canceled policies throughout the state.

Government policy increasingly emphasizes helping people leave at-risk locales.

For many years, local and federal governments focused on helping make vulnerable areas livable. For example, the US Army Corps of Engineers opened risky areas to reentry and development by constructing floodwalls, levees, and other structures. The Corps began planning reservoirs for Houston’s outskirts in the 1930s after storms brought 10-foot floods to downtown.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) helps people rebuild after disasters. As climate-related dangers increased, local governments instituted more mitigation measures. Norfolk, Virginia, which faces the threat of flooding whenever the Chesapeake Bay rises, launched a major adaptation project in the Chesterfield Heights neighborhood on the Elizabeth River. The project included elevating vulnerable streets, updating drainage systems, installing pump stations and a tide gate, and building waterfront berms to protect against storm surges.

Federal policies have shifted from mitigation and rebuilding to helping people relocate following a disaster. This shift springs from the 1960s National Flood Insurance Program, which offers subsidized flood coverage to fill a gap that commercial insurance companies had left. It dissuaded people from settling in flood zones by making flood insurance mandatory. Unfortunately, the subsidies reduced insurance premiums enough that their cost did not discourage buyers.

“The new buyout program cut against decades of disaster policy, which had always underwritten the risk of construction in vulnerable areas.”

More recently, governments adopted “managed retreat” strategies. In flood- and fire-vulnerable neighborhoods, FEMA offered home buyouts, requiring those who accepted them to move out of their vulnerable neighborhoods. FEMA then demolished the remaining structures. The federal government has launched buyouts in a limited number of smaller communities – a coastal enclave in Louisiana, the Lincoln City neighborhood in the North Carolina swamplands, and Native American villages in Washington and Alaska.

Buyouts are too expensive to pursue in larger communities such as Norfolk. But a retreat from such areas is inevitable, due to physical damage from rising seas and the resultant drop in the value of coastal real estate.

By around 2050, housing displacement will be the most common consequence of climate change.

By the middle of the 21st century, an estimated 20 million Americans may be on the move because of climate change. The pattern of the first migrations will appear random, but long-term trends will emerge. Evacuees will search for new places with lower environmental insecurity and greater economic opportunity.

An example of such a pattern is already appearing in the suburbs of Boise, Idaho. Dozens of refugees from California’s 2018 Camp Fire, which destroyed the town of Paradise, have settled in the area in a migration resulting from a confluence of “push” and “pull” factors. The threat of future fires and the high cost of real estate pushed refugees to leave California. Idaho’s lower cost of living, lower fire risk, and relative nearness to their former state pulled Californians to Boise.

Long-term migration trends may depend on where people find social and demographic connections. In the wake of Hurricane Maria in 2017, for example, Puerto Rican refugees spread across the United States. Their primary destinations included Orlando and Miami, which had large, preexisting Puerto Rican populations. They also relocated to less obvious destinations such as Buffalo, New York, and Springfield, Massachusetts, where Puerto Rican communities formed around manufacturing jobs.

Growing urbanization will influence the US climate diaspora. During the past 100 years, the percentage of Americans living in cities has risen from 45% to 80%. Climate migration is likely to extend that growth. Cities offer more jobs and housing, and local governments are likely to expend most of their climate resilience efforts in locales with the largest populations.

“It will take decades for these movements to coalesce, but once they do, they will reshape the demographic geography of the United States.”

The number of people living near the coasts has risen since 2000. Primary relocation destinations include relatively high-temperature cities, such as Phoenix, Arizona; Miami, Florida; and Dallas, Texas. According to one real estate firm’s survey of more than 2,000 people, about half of those who plan to move in the next year cited natural disasters as their reason. Recent research suggests that though climate change may not always be the primary motive for a move, climate risks factor into people’s decisions.

Heat is the issue likely to weigh most heavily on migration decisions. Even with extensive efforts to reduce CO2 emissions, heat will continue to rise everywhere on Earth. Elevated temperatures will damage people’s health, raise household energy costs, and threaten a variety of industries from agriculture to tourism.

“Unlike the recessions and crises of centuries past, this downward spiral will be one from which there is no real hope of recovery, at least not on time horizons that humans tend to use.”

Some areas of the United States face less risk and are likely to attract climate migrants. These will include relatively temperate areas with fresh water access, and far from rising seas. Some Rust Belt cities fit this description, particularly those near the Great Lakes. Many of these cities have been losing population for years and may welcome migrants. Some cities already market themselves as climate sanctuaries.

To prepare for the coming changes, America should take these steps.

• Strengthen the disaster-response network – Reforms could include increasing funding for FEMA’s disaster-relief unit, boosting buyout payments, and offering an allowance to people who must relocate but who lack an insurance payout. Governments should offer more incentives for people to leave flood areas.
• Boost climate adaptation efforts – The United States should initiate more projects like the flood fortifications in Norfolk’s Chesterfield Heights. Governments should invest in forest thinning to reduce fire risk and minimize agricultural water use.
• Reform the mortgage and insurance markets in vulnerable areas – Private fire insurance withholds coverage from many who need it, while the National Flood Insurance Program often functions as a subsidy for people in risky areas and offers little help for low-income households.
• Address housing affordability – Congress could reform and expand the federal housing voucher program, which currently serves only a fraction of those eligible. Including all eligible people would protect vulnerable residents from homelessness after a destructive event.
• Address international migration – US immigration policies are inadequate to deal with a potential surge of climate refugees, particularly from Central America. Unless the United States welcomes more migrants, it will consign millions to poverty and danger, and it could also forfeit some of the economic opportunities that immigration brings.

About the Author

Jake Bittle’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, and Harper’s Magazine. He is a contributing writer for Grist.