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It's more environmentally friendly to live in an arid region than a wet one: thread
There's 6 million people in Indiana and 2 million in NM, it's a good thing we're spreading out more! The Great Lakes is already pretty densely populated - and it would be more appealing if the area had more forests and less farm squares.
There is no water crisis in the SW, there's just an alfalfa crisis. Some of the cows may just have to go... You don't need much water for residence, you need a lot of water for industry and agriculture. This has been shown time and time again where cities can take out a farm, drop a subdivision in, and end up with a net gain in water. In today's world, food is shipped all over anyways so it's not like a person in Ohio is eating more locally sourced products than a person in Utah.
Water is only one aspect, looking at it from an energy perspective, a place like Wisconsin is pretty poor - bad for solar, not much wind, not much natural gas, and you need a lot of energy to heat your house during the rather frigid winters. Here in Taos our grid is theoretically 100% solar during day hours and my house doesn't even need A/C, and natural gas is super cheap.
I'd rather be in a place with abundant energy than abundant water.
The water crisis is fabricated is the issue. An acre of Almond farming for example is equivalent to 10 families supply of water, in a year. Saying an area is having a water shortage people need to stop moving there makes no sense when 74% of Arizona’s water is agricultural. Even in densely populated California, 40% of water there is used for Agriculture.
California has extremely productive agricultural land. But if the decision is thousands of acres of farms going offline to give the urban 90% more water the cost-benefit ratio is obvious as in turn you could convert some of these urban farmlands in the Bay Area for example into more housing to lower the overall prices. For example South of San Jose, East of Antioch and North Bay has tons of farmlands and vineyards that could be converted into thousands if not a million+ homes. Now with Vineyards your tourism dollars are affected so it maybe a more complicated discussion. But if the issue is thirst there’s a million workable solutions available.
With rising sea levels, desalination is a thing. China in ancient times built an enormous canal system that carried water across a whole continent sized country. There are ideas to combat desertification by refilling the rivers that once crossed Sahara.
The issue isn’t feasibility with a lot of these projects but political will, environmental degradation, political stability and economic might.
It would be one thing if climate change meant Florida is just underwater in 3 months. The reality is while the sea levels rise over the decades; tons of water can be pumped into the existing dried up lakes and riverbeds all over the Sahara to combat desertification. The technology exists it’s just not an easy monetary cost. But if the alternative is trillions of dollars of prime real estate in Florida and across the world we’re 70% of the population lives near an ocean or body of water, you better believe that the Sahara will be criss-crossed by rivers again. Or the worlds biggest canal will be built. There’s just so much money on our coasts it makes more sense to fight them with massive super projects than to just abandon them because of water scarcity or rising sea levels.
Last edited by NigerianNightmare; 07-10-2023 at 10:32 AM..
As long as you feel like you have to wear cleats for 3-4 months out of the year, on top of the other crap, expect this pattern of migration to continue. The human body isn't made for consistent temps below freezing, especially if you're a particular race.
But as I said before: the South is fools gold when it comes to personal economics.
Quality of life. The only people that live in those places are those that were born in those places. No one I have heard of that I deal with when it comes to moving likes winter.
I grew up in Miami. Look where I live now. Winter was a huge draw for me.
Pittsburgh is in the mountains and is in the Northeast, yet we haven't had a single snow storm drop at least 12" of snow since I moved here in November 2010. Our city has a diversified economy, very cheap real estate (we bought our home for $54,900 in 2020), gorgeous architecture, interesting urban neighborhoods, decent transit, and is relatively safe, yet we are still declining in population because "the weather sucks". Why? We don't really have rough winters here anymore. This past winter we had like 2" of snow a few separate times. We have abundant water supplies.
I really don't think most Americans want to think about what Phoenix or Miami Beach or New Orleans will be like in 30-50 years. Boomers will be long dead by then, and Gen X and Millennials will be in nursing homes. If these places will be livable for the next 30-50 years, then, yes, people are still going to flee Pittsburgh and Chicago and Cleveland and Rochester and Scranton in droves to move to them.
The majority of people don't care beyond today. Tomorrow's problems (flood, storm, drought, earthquake, tsunami, whatever) don't affect them, so out of sight out of mind.
How else do you explain cities like Houston, which has gone through umpteen catastrophic events just in my lifetime (multiple floods, droughts, hurricanes, ice storms) that have destroyed tens of thousands of properties, caused hundreds of deaths, and are bound to reoccur. Plus, endless months of heat and humidity in normal summers. Sky-high insurance rates. But hey, when it's sunny and 75 in January, why worry about tomorrow, right?
Pittsburgh is in the mountains and is in the Northeast, yet we haven't had a single snow storm drop at least 12" of snow since I moved here in November 2010. Our city has a diversified economy, very cheap real estate (we bought our home for $54,900 in 2020), gorgeous architecture, interesting urban neighborhoods, decent transit, and is relatively safe, yet we are still declining in population because "the weather sucks". Why? We don't really have rough winters here anymore. This past winter we had like 2" of snow a few separate times. We have abundant water supplies.
I really don't think most Americans want to think about what Phoenix or Miami Beach or New Orleans will be like in 30-50 years. Boomers will be long dead by then, and Gen X and Millennials will be in nursing homes. If these places will be livable for the next 30-50 years, then, yes, people are still going to flee Pittsburgh and Chicago and Cleveland and Rochester and Scranton in droves to move to them.
People on average actually like Pittsburgh weather more than Phoenix - here's why, there's like 20 million people that live in the area with similarish climate and at least 50% of them like the weather there. If you took all 340 million americans and gave them the option of only Pittsburgh or Phoenix, more would pick Pittsburgh. Y'all are just already pretty densely populated up there. I'd prefer Pittsburgh weather to Taos and it's much better than hail and wind alley Colorado Springs, I just like the wilderness out here better .
There's complainers but that's because there was a lot of people born there. Places with a lot of influx get weather hype because people moved there specifically for the weather - they have allergies, hate snow, hate clouds etc. And there's not that many people that actually live in these "exotic" type of climates. But kids actually don't like the weather as much as the parents that moved there. I saw this at church camps growing up, people from Vegas or Phoenix mainly didn't care for the weather or scenery, it was just where they sprouted.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RocketSci
The majority of people don't care beyond today. Tomorrow's problems (flood, storm, drought, earthquake, tsunami, whatever) don't affect them, so out of sight out of mind.
How else do you explain cities like Houston, which has gone through umpteen catastrophic events just in my lifetime (multiple floods, droughts, hurricanes, ice storms) that have destroyed tens of thousands of properties, caused hundreds of deaths, and are bound to reoccur. Plus, endless months of heat and humidity in normal summers. Sky-high insurance rates. But hey, when it's sunny and 75 in January, why worry about tomorrow, right?
Seems to be true especially for the older crowd. There's no other explanation for why people move to Florida, which is the worst state for everything: water issues, forest fires, hurricanes, sea level rise, culture, sink holes... Certain places like Houston just put up with the risks cause there there has to be a gulf coast port and that's the economic and logistic center for it all. Literally everyone in Houston moved there for their $$$ job. But the SW outside of Phoenix and the Sonoran desert is less disaster prone than other spots in the nation.
Pittsburgh is in the mountains and is in the Northeast, yet we haven't had a single snow storm drop at least 12" of snow since I moved here in November 2010. Our city has a diversified economy, very cheap real estate (we bought our home for $54,900 in 2020), gorgeous architecture, interesting urban neighborhoods, decent transit, and is relatively safe, yet we are still declining in population because "the weather sucks". Why? We don't really have rough winters here anymore. This past winter we had like 2" of snow a few separate times. We have abundant water supplies.
I really don't think most Americans want to think about what Phoenix or Miami Beach or New Orleans will be like in 30-50 years. Boomers will be long dead by then, and Gen X and Millennials will be in nursing homes. If these places will be livable for the next 30-50 years, then, yes, people are still going to flee Pittsburgh and Chicago and Cleveland and Rochester and Scranton in droves to move to them.
I think we're honestly reaching a tipping point, unfortunately, so I'd give it a lot less time than even 30 years. Humans can only bear so much, especially with headlines like this:
Quote:
Florida ocean temperatures at ‘downright shocking’ levels
Not only is Florida sizzling in record-crushing heat, but the ocean waters that surround it are scorching, as well. The unprecedented ocean warmth around the state — connected to historically warm oceans worldwide — is further intensifying its heat wave and stressing coral reefs, with conditions that could end up strengthening hurricanes.
There's evidence that the climate models that were already dire were too conservative in their projections of temperature increases. Warming oceans also mean more intense storms. This does not bode well for the Southeast in any possible way.
The majority of people don't care beyond today. Tomorrow's problems (flood, storm, drought, earthquake, tsunami, whatever) don't affect them, so out of sight out of mind.
How else do you explain cities like Houston, which has gone through umpteen catastrophic events just in my lifetime (multiple floods, droughts, hurricanes, ice storms) that have destroyed tens of thousands of properties, caused hundreds of deaths, and are bound to reoccur. Plus, endless months of heat and humidity in normal summers. Sky-high insurance rates. But hey, when it's sunny and 75 in January, why worry about tomorrow, right?
Well by that logic nobody should live in Asia pretty much given the fact much of it is at high risk of earthquakes and tsunamis, as well as tropical cyclones much stronger than what the Gulf coast experiences. Similarly, much of Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela as well as the Mediterranean is earthquake-prone. Meanwhile large sections of Southern Europe, Africa and Central Asia are drought-prone.
It's all a matter of managing risk. It's not like Buffalo, NY has no risk factors. The frequency of large-scale blizzards which affect the lives of its residents in a meaningful way is arguably among the greatest in the world. Should everyone move out of the Lake Effect snow belt to avoid that?
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