Losing Your Neighborhood to Climate Change Is Sometimes Necessary

Program fellow Fanilla Cheng's research on managed retreat was cited in a New York Times op-ed on post-disaster recovery in the United States amid the worsening impacts of climate change.

To prevent loss of lives, livelihoods and property, some scientists and planners are supporting a strategy called managed retreat, in which communities get government aid to move away from places most vulnerable to extreme weather. Managed retreat remains rare in practice — for example, a recent Houston Public Media report found that home buyouts in the Houston area have been sluggish, with only 750 completed and 5,000 properties still on Harris County’s post-Harvey buyout list.

We believe managed retreat must become more common so communities can avoid the worst consequences of climate change. But even as academics and think tanks refined ideas on how to best relocate communities, leaving was not on the minds of [Friendswood, Texas] residents we spoke to after Hurricane Harvey. They struggled to imagine moving away from a place they called home even though their homes had just been destroyed and studies suggested that a growing number of houses in the area were susceptible to flooding.

Instead of driving people away, the devastation caused by disaster often has the opposite effect. Flooded residents described an increasing sense of connection to their neighbors in the immediate aftermath of the storm; an outpouring of assistance confirmed for them that Friendswood was a caring and supportive community.

Read more about the challenges surrounding expanded use of managed retreat in the U.S. here.