Housing for the Decline

[next_migration]

People leaving the climate red zones may have a great variety of economic circumstances. Some will own a home outright or with a mortgage—these areas being what they are, perhaps a very large mortgage—and may plan an elaborate move in which they get a new job, sell the old house, and simultaneously buy a new house. Others will be lucky to be able to afford a small apartment or rented mobile home, or will have to crash with someone they know at their destination until they can work for a while and build up a cash reserve. I’ll make a few suggestions for people in each category, with a quick digression:

 

 

“Wait, mobile home?! Are you serious?!”

Yes indeed. Mobile homes (or “manufactured homes,” if made after 1976, or “tornado magnets”) are unfashionable objects of mockery in urban areas, but still popular as cheap housing in rural areas, and they can be rented as well as bought. Mobile home parks give each family a space with four walls and a little “yard,” though usually residents are not allowed to use it for anything useful, such as gardening. Where land is cheap enough to make this arrangement affordable, residents often prefer it to apartments in which people are stacked on top of each other with less privacy.

Mobile homes can be inexpensive to rent or purchase, due to their relatively flimsy construction. Nationwide, average rent for a mobile home has increased sharply in the past 10 years, reaching $568 per month in 2020, still cheaper than most apartments. Higher figures may be expected in some places, though. Although numbers are not directly comparable, as apartments are mostly located in more urban, more costly areas, you might well find that mobile homes are cheaper than apartments in the same town.

 Mobile homes’ lightweight construction often means that heating bills are very high for their size, unless you can find ways to insulate the home or yourself or just grin and bear it all winter. They do not stand up well to tornadoes, so a park should have a community building that residents can use for shelter in severe weather. Many have their own water supply separate from the town’s, so it’s a good idea to check online (City-data has some information) for any recent major safety violations. Some have other potential environmental or financial/legal risks; the website of US Mobile Home Pros lists questions one might want to ask before signing a lease. Otherwise, renting a mobile home is much like renting an apartment. Some mobile home parks restrict or forbid pets, but in many towns it may be easier to find a park that will allow your dog or cat than an apartment or rented house.

Because mobile home parks are where the economically disadvantaged live in many smaller communities, you could have some neighbors with social or drug issues, just as you might in an affordable apartment complex in a city. But there are also many working-class families with children in good parks, which can have a real community spirit. Since parks are more densely populated than a neighborhood of homes on large lots, it can be easier for the kids to play together and the adults to socialize; you do not have to walk a long way to get together with neighbors. It is also easier for a kid to get outside, emotionally as well as physically, when they’re in a mobile home rather than on the third floor. If a mobile home park is the best available first stop in your new home, don’t let yourself be put off by urbanites’ stereotypes.

 

If you currently own a house or condo in one of the red zones we’ve discussed, because of the population density in many of those areas it may have cost much more than similar housing in the middle of the country. If that means you have a big mortgage that will have to be paid off when you sell the house, especially if it’s in a very high-risk place, I wouldn’t recommend that you wait too long to do that. If people start deciding it’s a bad place to move to as the negative headlines increase, it could be more difficult than you’d expect to unload that house for what you paid for it—or what you still owe. If you own the house outright, at present you can sell it and walk away with enough money to buy a comparable house in a less crowded destination town, cover your relocation costs, and have money left over. This is the ideal circumstance to be in.

However, I recommend against buying as much house as you can afford, or even a house comparable to the one you had in California, unless that was a very modest house. Spacious housing for small families is a product of the fossil fuel era. In the past, people had much less square footage per capita, not only because building materials were expensive, but because heating a large place with wood would have been too costly. Small houses are cheaper to insulate, cheaper to heat and cool, cheaper to furnish, and easier to clean and maintain. Buy a house that’s smaller than you could afford and spend leftover money on making it energy-efficient.

Avoid neighborhoods with a homeowner’s association if at all possible. A very common purpose of HOAs is to allow persnickety, shallow people to force their neighbors to put on a show of being well-to-do conformists. Maybe you don’t care now if someone dictates what color your mailbox or curtains are, but when times are tough and they’re dishing out huge fines to people who put up a clothesline or grow a few useful plants, you’ll find that they’re a real threat to your well-being.

If you look around your current spacious house or apartment and think that you have more stuff than can be fit into a smaller place, give serious consideration to downsizing. How much furniture, electronic gizmos, entertainment supplies, kitchen gear, clothes, etc. would you have left if you got rid of everything that you rarely use now, wouldn’t use in your new home either, and wouldn’t much miss? You can sell those things, or donate them to support good causes and reduce the ultimate purchasers’ need to buy new things. The less you have, the cheaper and less stressful your move will be.

If the average income in your new community is low, many people will live frugally by necessity, and the more old-fashioned types still see thrift as a virtue. It is a virtue: living below your means reduces your impact on the climate and readies you for a day when your means may decline. If you are well-to-do, you don’t have to feign poverty, but try not to arrive in a humble community with lots of fancy furniture and fancy clothes and a fancy car. In our money-loving consumer culture, many rural folks these days do practice conspicuous consumption, but it will be of a different type, e.g., an overly tricked-out pickup truck or giant bass boat. Your urban status-display items will not be admired so much as they will mark you as an outsider.

 

If you are young and have little savings, you will be looking for a town where it’s possible to rent an apartment or mobile home. Too many Americans are compelled to accept housing that’s more expensive than they can afford, keeping them from getting ahead by building up savings or taking classes. If your income potential is high enough that you can get housing that’s cheaper than you can afford, grab that opportunity! Don’t look for the biggest place you can afford, or the one with the most amenities. The smaller and less fancy you can live with, the better. Smaller means cheaper, and easier to heat.

Don’t rent a furnished apartment if you can avoid it. They are more expensive, and rarely available in small towns. Bring basic furniture with you or get it when you can after you arrive. Professional movers are expensive, but if you’re a younger couple, you can probably rent a truck and move your essential furniture and other belongings by yourselves. If you are single or unable to lift heavy things, perhaps you can get friends to help load a truck and arrange for paid labor at the other end to unload it. The more excess stuff you can get rid of before moving, the better; less stuff means a smaller, cheaper truck and less backbreaking work at both ends.

If you own very little stuff, it is rather easy to move. My husband and I moved twice, in our first year together, in a Ford Fairmont. A few years later that would have been impossible, because we owned a bunch of furniture. If money is really tight and you don’t have any furniture that you’re emotionally attached to, you could sell, donate, or abandon all or most of your furniture, move in your car or using a rental trailer or mini-truck, and acquire secondhand furniture in your new home as you can manage it. In the right season, you could do the local yard-sale circuit to hunt for furniture; this would help you get to know the town, too.

 

If you have choices when you move, or if you’re going to purchase a house, seek a neighborhood that is less likely to be affected by climate-enhanced natural disasters. Some disasters are unpredictable (tornadoes) or affect large areas (hurricanes). Others can be highly localized. Flooding is the biggest issue. We have been hearing over and over about places getting a year’s worth of rain in a few days, or a 500-year flood. (In the future, those may be called 10-year floods.) When I started writing this book, it had been Europe and China. Weeks later, it was Tennessee, where dozens of people were killed by flooding, some swept out of wrecked apartment buildings by the water, after 17 inches of rain fell. A hotter atmosphere can hold more water, so storms will be more intense and dump heavier rainfall. Areas that have usually had enough surface water will now, at times, have far more than enough. Think about where in your neighborhood that water might go.

As flood expert Prof. Bob Criss explained in an article on urban flooding in St. Louis, small streams are a much bigger risk for destructive or deadly flooding after heavy rain than big rivers. The river already has a huge amount of water flow, and people building near its banks realize that the flow varies greatly by season, so usually there are either protective walls and dikes, or open spaces where extra water can spread out. A small creek cannot contain a huge influx of water from the monsoon-like rains that will become increasingly common with climate change, and it can rise ten feet or more and spill far over its banks in a matter of hours. This is especially the case if the creek has been engineered into a straight drainage canal with concrete sides, where there is nothing to slow the water down and nowhere for it to go except over the edge and into the streets.

Humans naturally prefer to live near water, even in times when we don’t have to carry our household water in buckets from a water source. But you don’t want to live too near water that is likely at some point to rise and flood your neighborhood. Check a map when you’re looking for a home; if there’s a creek anywhere nearby, check it out. Is it concretized? Does it have undeveloped floodplain space around it? If it looks risky, try to make sure that the main floor of your dwelling would be at least a few yards above it in elevation. Horizontal distance won’t do much good, because if the stream flow suddenly increases by up to 5000 times the usual, which can happen, and the area around the stream is flat, and especially if it is paved, that water can spread out for hundreds of yards.

If economic limitations force you to rent an apartment near a risky stream, apartments on the second floor or higher are physically safer. If you live anywhere in a flood-prone area, don’t store anything irreplaceable in a basement. (On the other hand, access to a basement during a heat wave can literally be lifesaving.) Of course, if you’re buying a house, look for any evidence that it’s been flooded before. If the basement has been full of water or worse before, it probably will be again.

 

Another desirable feature is the ability to grow a bit of your own food. If your family would have the ability to manage a garden, look for a house with a suitable yard with adequate sunlight. Many towns still prohibit growing useful plants in the front yard; check this out and make sure that if the town has that attitude, you only look for a good back yard.

If you don’t have time or strength for much gardening, look for a small yard that won’t demand much maintenance. Don’t buy a house with a big lawn that you couldn’t mow with a hand push mower if need be. Some local governments may require you to keep it mowed even in an energy crisis. Or look for an apartment, mobile home in a park with small lots, or in larger cities, perhaps a condo.

If you must get an apartment, try to find a place where you would be able at least to grow a few potted vegetables on a balcony or patio, or where there would be a nearby community garden where you might get a small patch. Nobody who lives in a town can grow most or all of their own food, but you won’t need to. Up until quite recently, you could buy enough lentils, rice and oatmeal to keep yourself from starving for a dollar a day. If staple food costs tripled, most people who have cooking facilities could still manage $3 a day. But it wouldn’t provide adequate nutrition for long without the addition of some fruits and vegetables, and being able to supply a little of that yourself would add resilience to your life. (In the longer term you’d also need some animal products or vitamin supplements. Try to make friends who keep chickens.)

 

Another thing that people moving northeast may need to think about is the nature of their winter heating fuel. Electric heating is common in the south. In colder climates, though newer electrical systems can work well, natural gas is the most commonly used fuel. In New England, fuel oil or kerosene is also used, especially in rural areas. Natural gas is delivered through pipes in most towns, but fuel oil has to be trucked in and dumped into a tank on the property. Be sure you find out when you’re acquiring housing what sort of furnace or heating system you’ll have and what you’ll need to do to keep it running, if it’s something you’re not familiar with.

Natural gas is currently the most plentiful and cheap fossil fuel for home heating, but eventually it too will become more expensive and less available. In the long run, houses will have to be heated by other means, such as renewable wood heating, geothermal energy, or Passivhaus technology that insulates the place so well (without suffocating the inhabitants!) that hardly any fuel must be burned. At present, only a tiny fraction of homes are heated by non-fossil alternatives. If you will own your house and can afford to install a wood stove as a backup to your furnace, or even a geothermal system, by all means do so. If you can’t, keep it in mind for the future. And do also look into approaches to heating yourself and your immediate workspace rather than the whole house, as well as ensuring that the house is well insulated if at all possible.

 

If you are like the vast majority of Americans, you have a car or other passenger vehicle. If you’re middle-class, you aren’t likely to be giving it up voluntarily. If you’re young or poor, you may be using it as your moving van. In the long run, though, you’d be wise to reduce your car dependency as much as possible. Cars are helping to change the climate. They are costly to feed, repair, insure, and occasionally replace, so the time may come when you can’t afford to keep a car.

Also, someday you might be unable to get gas, the right type of oil, or some necessary part for weeks or months. This is another one of those things that is already happening now, with ongoing COVID-triggered supply chain and shipping disruptions. People are complaining online about cars in need of repair being unusable for weeks or longer because a required part is back-ordered. Remember the predictions of the Limits to Growth team, that the production of consumer goods per person might plummet over the next couple of decades. In a globalized economy that would certainly mean many more shortages, of more items, and longer ones. Unsocial behaviors like starting a civil war or defaulting on the national debt would also create a rapid reduction in accessible goods.

To that end, when you move, if you know where you will probably be working, try to get housing close enough to that area that you could walk there and back daily if needed. A location gets bonus points if there’s any kind of grocery store or farmer’s market within an easy walking distance and if the school your kids would attend is within walking or cycling distance. In a city that’s too big to walk across, if you can’t live near work or can’t predict where you’ll be working, look for housing that’s within easy walking distance of a bus stop, if there are buses, and a grocery store.

For able-bodied people, walking distance doesn’t mean “within three blocks.” In the 1970s my middle-class father walked two and a half miles each way to work and back most days, including in Illinois winters, unless there was ice or really heavy snow. We had one car in a two-parent family. That was considered normal. I walked half a mile each way to school, again in most kinds of weather, from kindergarten through fourth grade. That didn’t kill kids; it was good for them. If you’re young today, the chances that you will be able to drive everywhere you go when you’re elderly are slim. Start getting used to getting around on foot and with the aid of public transport, and you’ll be doing yourself a huge favor—doubly so if you move to a less car-centric place where walking in good weather will actually be pleasant.

Speaking of cars, consider whether your current car is a good vehicle for the place you’ll be going. There’s a reason rural people like pickup trucks. Most of my readers who actually decide to lead the next Great Migration will be moving from warm places to colder places. Some cars do not perform well in winter weather or on poor roads, which will become increasingly common in the de-industrial future. If you have one of those zippy sports cars with 2” of road clearance, not only will it have trouble handling heavy snow or potholed or gravel roads, but it’s likely to accumulate a lot of road salt on the bottom and rust out fast. Sell it before moving if you can, and buy something more suitable for the climate.

If you have an unusual brand or type of car, especially imported, and you’ve decided to move to a smaller town, try to investigate local businesses and make sure there’s a mechanic locally who would work on it. These days you can get a Honda worked on almost everywhere, but I’d worry about weirder foreign cars, or electric cars, which in addition to being a political signifier are dependent upon very costly batteries. (And unless your local electricity is all renewable, they probably don’t actually save that much carbon.) It could be better to trade such vehicles in on something locally more popular before you go. If you can’t sell an inappropriate vehicle, get used to the idea that you won’t be able to keep it running forever. Cars embody a huge amount of resources in their production, so from now on, for the rest of your life, buy used cars even if you could afford new, drive them sparingly, and keep them running as long as possible with gentle treatment and regular attention to low-cost maintenance.