“If Charleston can change, the South can change. If the South can change, America can change.”
Given these real and growing risks to human flourishing, there is—just barely—time to be wiser. Looking at this future is like “looking down that railroad track and seeing that little light,” according to seasoned scientist Bob Perry. When he talks to skeptics, he says, “We all know that train is coming. By gosh, we got to get off the track.” There are many things Charleston could do to be prepared for the moment that train rolls through. “We’re leaving and we’re not coming back,” says Perry.
Right now, it is very difficult for ordinary consumers to get access to good data about the risk profile of particular residential properties. The Town of East Hampton, New York, issued a report in mid-2022 making clear that, absent extraordinary and wildly expensive protective efforts, by 2070 the town would be transformed “into a series of islands” due to rapidly rising sea levels. It is difficult to imagine Charleston publishing similar information.
Relocation packages would be created; a raft of government tax and credit levers would incentivize the construction of new homes in safer areas. These new residential districts would be dense, be well-served by transit, and include ample amounts of truly affordable houses. The land left behind once residents voluntarily left would be turned into protected marshland and parks, the very things that will help slow flooding further inland.
Policymakers would also announce that after the first 10 years, the incentives would be lower, perhaps far lower, so as to encourage early decisionmaking. Coastal regions like Charleston would need to pay much more attention to actually engaging meaningfully with communities, including with faith-based groups and nonprofits—not just looking for buy-in to existing plans, or placating groups by featuring leading nonoppositional members of those communities.
We urgently need to shift to strategic efforts that include sociocultural as well as physical factors and involve the whole country. As Professor A. R. Siders of the University of Delaware, a leading academic in the emerging field of strategic relocation, says, “A substantial amount of innovation and work—in both research and practice—will need to be done to make strategic [relocation] an efficient and equitable adaptation option at scale.
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