How to Convince People to Leave Homes at Serious Risk From Climate Change

Article/Op-Ed in Slate
Sky Cinema / Shutterstock.com
April 1, 2022

FLH fellow Fanilla Cheng and program director Yuliya Panfil wrote for Future Tense at Slate, exploring why the U.S. government's incremental approach to sea-level rise, largely through the process of "managed retreat," is increasingly unfeasible.

The research organization First Street Foundation found in 2020 that 15 million homes across the United States are at substantial risk of flooding, and things are only going to get worse. Scientists project that in a few decades, almost half of Galveston, Texas; more than half of Hoboken, New Jersey; and almost two-thirds of Miami Beach, Florida, will become uninhabitable due to sea level rise.
Faced with these grim facts, coastal cities, counties, and the federal government are beginning to grapple with how to relocate vulnerable coastal residents. Right now, the most common way to do this is through a process called managed retreat: After a storm damages a home, the government offers a property owner money to move away instead of rebuilding. Typically, the amount of money matches the value of the home, sometimes with a small additional incentive amount.
Over the past 40 years, the government has relocated nearly 45,000 people in this manner. But as the seas threaten to swallow up entire cities, this incremental approach is becoming increasingly unrealistic—financially, logistically, and politically. It’s also increasingly inequitable.

Read why "managed retreat" is impractical at scale, and what our alternatives are, here.

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Housing and Climate Change