Is it time to start moving our coastal cities inland?

[MadHound]

Here we are, twelve years into the century of major climate change, and two major American cities have been inundated by hurricane driven storm systems, New Orleans and NYC. Neither city was truly prepared for their respective storms, though both cities had been warned years in advance that such disasters were not just likely, but pretty much inevitable.

Worse is in store for those that live along the various coasts of our country. Stronger hurricanes, rising oceans, more frequent disasters, piling on top of one another until the we reach the point where particular places can't recover from one disaster before another one hits.

So the question becomes, should we move these cities inland, now? Given that our current best models(which are have been recently revised upwards, and probably will be again as the full ramifications of global climate change come into play) show ocean rises of between three and five feet along our coasts by the year 2100, wouldn't it behoove us to move our cities now, rather than constantly paying to repair them?

Yes, that would mean leaving a lot of wonderful old buildings, places of cultural significance behind and at the mercy of the weather, but what other choice is there? Continuing to pay hundreds of billions to repair the damage every few years? Can we really afford that in the long run? I don't think so. Sooner or later, places like Long Island, Florida, New Orleans, etc. are going to have to be abandoned because they will become unlivable. Why not do it now, in a controlled manner, rather than later in a much less controlled manner?

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. What about our shipping industry? We can't move that inland ahead of time, and we need workers to

live nearby to keep it running. Ditto the nuclear power plants and many other industries tied to the water.

I see your point, though. Would be good to have a plan ready to go, if not actually make a start on it now.

[dawg]

2. Move everything to Atlanta.

Most of the other large cities are gonna get really wet.

[mattclearing]

3. The cost of moving cities is even higher than repairing them.

And if people had the foresight to move their cities, they'd sooner have the foresight to minimize their CO2 output.

It's a valid question, but somehow it just seems too rational and deliberate a strategy to catch on. Maybe these kinds of storms are changing opinions, but people are very attached to their geographical landmarks, no matter how threatened they may be.

[steelmania75]

4. We need shipping ports for the economy...

And you say that's it's too costly to keep rebuilding every few years but could you imagine the cost of moving 8 million New Yorkers inland?

Here's what you do, something the government has refused to do for decades, YOU BUILD STATE-OF-THE-ART INFRASTRUCTURE! Get NYC updated barriers, dams, levees, etc.

[MadHound]

8. You can build/keep the port infrastructure, yet still move the rest of the city

But frankly, we don't have the technological capability to build the infrastructure needed to protect our coastal cities from what is coming. Most knowledgeable folks are projecting that our coastal cities are going to be inundated, underwater. Florida is going to be a small sliver of itself. A three to four foot rise means that San Francisco becomes a group of small islands, San Diego goes under, and Long Island vanishes. That's just from the rise of ocean levels, not the damage that the storm damage that will occur.

[grasswire]

11. true dat

Yes, NYC needs to retain the port. But there's no reason why other industries/businesses can't be centered onshore. Advertising, entertainment, fashion, etc. No reason why those can't be moved.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

5. What is insurance like on the coast? I

imagine it's pretty expensive since the risk of hurricanes are surely factored in? I know flood insurance is separate.

[MountainLaurel]

6. Here in New Orleans

My homeowner's insurance is 1/4 of my mortgage payment, and that's for a house in an area that saw no damage during Katrina or the Federal Flood.

[mysuzuki2]

7. I propose a new federal law.

All seaports must be at least 100 miles from the ocean!

[ChisolmTrailDem]

10. Bring in engineers from The Netherlands and put people to work...

...building sea barriers and gates.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/10/30/dutch_flood_control_lessons_for_new_york_city.html

Ongoing climate change is both going to make severe storms like Hurricane Sandy more common and also raise baseline sea levels and increase general risk of coastal flooding. We're seeing today that even when loss of life is fairly minimal, the indirect economic damage of flooding a major urban area can be severe—power will be out in New York for days, and nobody really knows when the Subway will be back up and running. Unless the city can reasonably safeguard itself against flood, the consequences are going to be disastrous. We can—and should—hope for global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but it's extraordinarily unlikely that as much will be done fast enough to prevent the need for substantial adaptation measures. That's particularly true for a densely populated wealthy area like Greater New York City where even fantastically costly investments pay off if they're needed to avoid rendering the massive amount of fixed infrastructure already in play useless.

The best place to look for guidance is probably the city's former colonial overlords in the Netherlands who've been trying for a while now to market their flood control expertise through their Holland Trade website:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/10/30/dutch_flood_control_lessons_for_new_york_city.html

[MadHound]

12. Except those barriers and gates won't do you much good

When they, and the rest of the city itself, is underwater.

Take away the storms, the simple amount of ocean rise is going to put cities like NYC, New Orleans and San Diego under water. You can't build barriers and gates that will withstand that sort of pressure, at least not now. Hell, entire swathes of states like Florida are going to be underwater. In essence what you are looking at is having to build a barrier that covers the entire US coastline, a bit over 12,000 miles. Good luck with that.

It would be far easier, and less expensive, to simply move the cities inland, leaving behind the port and other water based infrastructure, than to try and build a barrier around the entire US.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

13. Well, I wasn't thinking entire coastine. But for New York...

...it might be feasible to build a Netherlands-style seawall system at the mouth of the Hudson and across the upper East River east of the Bronx. Other coastal cities, Virginia's Tidewater comes to mind, could build similar projects.

As for the rest of the coastline, like the Carolina barrier islands or coastal Florida, such a structure would be impractical. Rising sea levels will run people off of those coasts before any moving of inland either mandated or voluntary happens.

[MadHound]

14. But that's the thing, you have to think of the entire US coast,

Because it is all going to be underwater. Florida is going to be a sliver of itself, Long Island will be gone, as will virtually every other coastal city. Better to move everything inland than try to build a barrier along our entire coast.

[KamaAina]

15. Wow! A post from 2005!

Where would you move them, exactly? Texas or Oklahoma? Tornado Alley. Missouri? Hello, New Madrid Fault. And so on, and so on.

[MadHound]

16. I'm not sure what you mean by your subject line,

But that aside, to answer your question, no, I wouldn't move them that far inland. Perhaps a hundred miles at most, depending on the geography and topography. Speaking of which, your town of San Jose is one of those that would be inundated. A good part of it will be underwater by the end of the century. Are you willing to live on an island, or move inland?

[blue neen]

18. Well, we could move them to West Virginia....

..or not, particularly since West Virginia got covered by two feet of snow from Hurricane Sandy.

[KamaAina]

20. We had a shit-ton of these kinds of posts after Katrina.

As a former New Orleans resident, I resented them then, and I resent them now.

The official elevation of San Jose is 85 feet above sea level. Only the small village of Alviso, annexed by San Jose decades ago, is low-lying enough to be inundated. Similarly, it would take more than a three- or four-foot rise in sea level to turn San Francisco into "a group of small islands". Try 25 or 30 feet.

Lastly, I am in my late 40s. I doubt very much I shall be living anywhere by the end of the century.

[TBF]

17. Maybe we should pay attention to global warming

and adjust policy accordingly?

Just a thought.

[Spike89]

19. There is no such thing as a city

There are reasons people live within a certain area and they have everything to do with geography--even though we often think otherwise. Throw out any dozen alternate histories of the US and you'll always end up with a major urban hub in New York, one in the Gulf where the Miss. River terminates, another where the Miss. starts, San Francisco is on a fault line, but it will always be a major city.

If things change, the city will "relocate" itself, but usually in pieces and relatively slowly. You don't move NY, but if it isn't feasible for the financial businesses to continue on Manhattan, they'll move their headquarters--maybe to Chicago, LA, Boston...where ever they can operate efficiently. When/if they move, there is less reason for other businesses to be there and they close/move their business. In a few years, NY is no longer the center.