High ground, high prices How climate change is speeding gentrification in some of America’s most flooding-vulnerable cities By Casey Tolan, CNN Published 10:00 AM ET, Wed March 3, 2021 "When Hurricane Katrina bore down on New Orleans, Rose Dyson was one of the lucky ones. Her house, in a mostly Black, working-class neighborhood near the Mississippi River, was perched on some of the city’s highest ground — and while the floodwater devastated homes in other parts of the city, it never reached her doorstep. "But in the years after the storm, the topography that had saved Dyson’s neighborhood became a selling point. A wave of new residents moved in, investors snapped up dilapidated buildings and housing prices skyrocketed. When Dyson’s annual property tax bill hit $4,000 two years ago — more than 20 times the amount she said she paid when she first moved in — she decided she had to give up the home she had dreamed of growing old in. “What I was paying went absolutely outrageous crazy — it was as if I had rebuilt the house and had a big mansion,” Dyson said. “I couldn’t keep up.” "Like many Black families in the area, Dyson was pushed out not by Hurricane Katrina, but by gentrification that followed in its wake. Her neighborhood, which has the second-highest median elevation of any census tract in New Orleans, went from 75% Black in 2000 to 71% White by 2019, according to Census data — one of the most dramatic racial shifts in the city over the last two decades. "Experts and local activists say the changes affecting the neighborhood are an example of climate gentrification — a process in which wealthier people fleeing from climate-risky areas spur higher housing prices and more aggressive gentrification in safer areas. As growing evidence finds sea level rise and flooding risk starting to affect real estate markets in the American cities most vulnerable to climate change, that trend could lead to residents being priced out of higher-ground neighborhoods, often in Black and minority communities. “The people who made these neighborhoods desirable and created the culture that thrived there have been pushed out,” said Cashauna Hill, the executive director of the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center. “Black New Orleanians have been relegated to neighborhoods that are further from the city center, and neighborhoods that flood much more easily.” "In New Orleans, the share of Black population in Census tracts with the highest median elevations — those a meter or more above sea level — fell by more than a third between 2000 and 2019, according to a CNN analysis of Census data. Academic research has also found that higher elevation neighborhoods saw more pronounced economic gentrification in the years since the storm. "The city isn’t alone. Other climate-risky cities around the country are also seeing signs of gentrification, including Miami, where booming real estate prices in higher-ground, minority neighborhoods — like Little Haiti — have been tied to sea level rise." More...
Right the wealthy are fleeing areas impacted by climate change..laughing as hard as I can... Nonsense... They are fleeing failed liberal policies, crime, insane taxes and covid.
I look at it as the wealthy using climate change to jump on an opportunity for gentrification whereas had the climate change / natural disaster not occurred...gentrification would not have occurred or slowly occurred over several decades of changes in the demographics. Gentrification is not just a coastal problem...it occurs in the inner city too. Slowly pushing out the low income people further way from the inner city so that the building of luxury condos can occur in areas once occupied by the low income and so on while the neighborhoods outside the inner city become more crowded / more crime infested. I've seen such in several cities but the most famous is still occurring in Chicago...not schedule to complete for another 10 - 20 years. Simply, coastal areas gentrification is speed up dramatically with the help of climate change as more ethnic minorities are pushed out of the city by the more wealthy individuals moving in whom can afford the high rising price of the revitalized neighborhoods. Yet, if you have a lot of money and you want to live in a trendy upscale neighborhood...you probably don't care about how it became that way long before you moved into the neighborhood. There's good to gentrification if you have money to spend and there's bad to gentrification if you don't have money to spend. wrbtrader
And related reasons... Coastal Insurance Costs Increasing as Sea Level Rises March 21, 2017 "When Julia Lundblad lies in bed at night in her Titlow Beach, Wash., home, she can hear the water sloshing up under her house. It took some getting used to, but she loves it. "And she said her neighbors are used to a little water flooding into their kitchens when conditions are right. “They said, ‘Well, if it comes in, we know it’ll go out again,”‘ Lunbdlad said. “It takes a special soul to live down here.” "Because the small community lies in such intimate proximity to the Puget Sound, homeowners with mortgages have to carry flood insurance. But the cost of that insurance, if you can get it, can be exorbitant. Some homeowners said they’ve been told to expect their monthly premiums to see huge spikes over the next several years. "Also recently, flood maps that the Federal Emergency Management Agency uses to determine flood risk – and help inform insurance rates – have changed in Tacoma’s coastal areas, with base flood elevation levels rising up to several feet. FEMA’s new flood maps went into effect in Tacoma earlier this month. "Almost 280 homes are affected by the map changes, said Sue Coffman, a city building official. She held an informational meeting for homeowners last week to answer questions and help them understand what the changing maps mean. "People with existing homes in those coastal zones are grandfathered in – they don’t have to raise their homes just because the maps now show a higher base flood elevation. But if they do a substantial home remodel or addition, or if the house is destroyed and must be rebuilt, they would have to rebuild at the new elevation, which, depending on the area, can be several feet higher. "Most at the meeting were worried about how and if the higher elevations will affect their insurance rates, because mortgage-holders must have flood insurance in those areas. Lundblad’s next-door neighbor, Chris Nichols, said he pays about $6,500 a year for flood insurance and was told in January the rate will start going up 25 percent every year." More...
Chris Nichols should be looking to upgrade his home like the below...home built on stilts. Yet, I strongly suspect the insurance company will still be jacking up his insurance rates. wrbtrader
It is a fantastic place to be a bum, always has been. If you're super wealthy, don't much care about the tax rate and can afford top notch security, it's still a nice place to live. For anyone else it's just too depressing watching paradise be turned into a sewer, so the ones that can leave do leave. The rest are stuck.
I’m in Miami right now. In a high rise, in Edgewater. They just keep building more and more right on the bay, because these builders don’t care about 30 years from now. New 700 SQFT 1 BR condos on Biscayne Bay are selling for $500-$600k here. They are starting to go inland more, because they’ve run out of costal real estate, but most of it is still very poor.
Suggesting that people are moving away from California because of the climate is absurd and intellectually dishonest... Ricter. People are moving away from California for reasons similar to my own. They don't want to pay for leftist nonsense projects like trains to nowhere, they don't want to be exposed to rampant crime, they are fed up with tyrannical lockdowns and mask mandates, they are sick of fires and smoke. They don't want to live where the beaches are closed at night, where the traffic is a parking lot, where your 6 figure salary isn't enough to buy a home, where your kids are indoctrinated to homosexuality in school, where the city allows bums to live on your sidewalk. You are a liar of the first order.