This article in Bloomberg gives some hard numbers on migration of U.S. population and business from the Northeast to the Southeast and Gulf states. It’s a long term trend, but it seems to have blown wide open during the pandemic. Although I actually have a soft spot for the south and the more positive aspects of its culture, I am disheartened by this trend in some other ways. People are moving into areas that sea level rise, coastal storms, inland storms, and extreme heat are expected to devastate in the coming decades. And say goodbye to the idea of walkable cities – these cities and states are the poster children for sprawl and automobile-dependence. We see in the headlines that insurance companies are starting to pull out of some of these areas, and the government may need to step in with more subsidy programs like the National Flood Insurance Program – in other words, the government may need to decide if it wants to support unsustainable development in these areas, and if so, we may need a national sea level rise and hurricane insurance program, and national thunderstorm insurance program, and a national fire insurance program. We will have to pay for this, or else go further into debt, and it will become one more reason why we can’t have nice things like health care, childcare, and equal access to high-quality education.

On the other hand, I am sitting here in Philadelphia, one of the most walkable northeastern cities and it is expensive, dangerous and just DIRTY AND BROKEN. And our voters just seemingly chose to keep it this way for at least four more years by re-electing the same if-it’s-not-invented-here-we can’t-do-it leadership that got us to this point. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and DC are all coastal cities so I can’t argue that we have a leg up over the south in this area. And the U.S. Army Corps just came through with upgraded coastal flood protection for Houston.