Introduction to the project

[next_migration]

Welcome to my new blog! Perhaps its title has made you wonder what it’s about. Its purpose is to acknowledge that some parts of the United States are rapidly approaching systemic collapse, and to encourage residents of those areas to move while they can do so in relative safety; indeed, to start a campaign to inspire people to do so in large numbers. I will discuss why you should consider this action in the very near term, suggest a varied selection of potential destinations—with both reader feedback and additional suggestions very welcome—and give some advice on how to do it successfully. There’s a lot to get out here, so I’ll do my best to post frequently.

 

The basic assumption of this work is that, not only is industrial civilization on the brink of a serious overall decline, but climate change will render life as we know it impossible in certain parts of the U.S. quite soon, and the broader systemic problems of our society will prevent any response on the scale that would be necessary to prevent that. Dissident voices have been warning for decades of the risks of climate change and the unsustainability of an economic system that requires endless increases in consumption, and have been largely ignored. Now, the crises are almost upon us.

Worrying about future crises seems like an unaffordable luxury for many Americans, who are isolated, stressed, and living paycheck to paycheck. Indeed, many people in that position fiercely defend the status quo, understandably fearing that any attempt to change it might leave them even worse off. Almost all of us are caught in consumption traps, too. Even if we know that our car-centric culture is unsustainable and wrecking the climate, if we can’t keep a job or visit loved ones without a car, we will keep paying for that car. Then we need the job to support the car, as well as the car to support the job. Climate change means we suffer more from the heat, so we use more air conditioning, which worsens climate change. And so forth.

There is a powerful inertia in any society. If what we are doing is allowing us to get by well enough, we want and expect to keep doing things that way for as long as possible, preferably forever. Making big changes means risk, sacrifices, discomfort, or conflict with other people who like things the way they are. Who needs that? So, we think we will only change if things really get bad enough to force us to.

The trouble is that when we see that we are being forced to change, it might be too late to avoid personal catastrophe. At best, the changes required will be much harder. If you plan to give up soda and cigarettes and start walking only if and when you actually have a heart attack, for example, then you run the risk that if you do, that first one will kill you. Even if it doesn’t, you’ll probably never achieve the level of health you might have enjoyed if you’d started doing those things twenty or even five years earlier.

There’s a difference between the personal-health example and our current predicament, though. If a doctor threatens that you’ll certainly have a heart attack if you don’t change your lifestyle (or, more likely, if you don’t go on pills for life), he’s lying. The odds may be ugly, but some people always beat them and live happily to extreme old age, on the couch smoking cigarettes and swilling rum and Coke. But in the coming years, the unsustainability of our economic arrangements plus increasing climate change will disrupt the global economy and make life harder for people in the areas worst hit. Some specific places will be badly affected. It’s effectively 100% certain that these things will happen.

In fact, they’re already happening now. Last year, several hundred people were killed by an apocalyptic heat wave and firestorm in the Pacific Northwest, and hundreds more by flooding in areas around the world that got a normal year’s rainfall in a few days. This year, we’re watching one surprise after another emerge from the shrinking water of Lake Mead; before too long, the next thing to appear could be the lowest intake pipe. We’ve assumed that even if the beautiful place we live in really will become a desert or a piece of seafloor, that would happen centuries from now, or at least several decades from now—so, not really our problem, right? Tough luck for the grandkids! But some areas may not have decades before their ability to maintain the minimal infrastructure of civilization is degraded over large areas. They may only have a few years—if that.

Future crises may drive large numbers of people out of the most vulnerable areas. People might be forced to leave because a hurricane, wildfire, or flood destroys their neighborhood, and the resources to support victims and rebuild don’t exist or aren’t made available. New Orleans was never fully rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina. As more such events occur, governments and insurance companies will provide less assistance after each. People may feel forced to move because of unreliable supplies of water or other utilities, or weather extremes that existing housing stock wasn’t designed to help people survive, or just the loss of available employment as things fall apart.

These will be occasions of misery at best. Imagine moving yourself or your family to a distant state not because you want to or you’ve taken a great new job, but because the situation at home has become completely intolerable. Maybe you’ve lost everything you own in a flood or fire, or maybe you’re moving in your car because you don’t have enough savings to rent an apartment, so you know that at best you’ll be living in a motel somewhere. And what if you don’t have a car?

The history of forced migration even within the United States is not a pretty one. Many of us are aware of our hostile exclusion of today’s foreign climate migrants and the camps they are herded into in European countries. Fewer know that when largely white American refugees from the manmade environmental disaster of the Dust Bowl entered California, they encountered not only monstrously exploitative employers, but brutal, semi-militarized police at the border and miserable refugee camps. We prefer not to remember that after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, white supremacist law officers in multiple places shot at, and even killed, African-American survivors trying to escape the flooded city across elevated bridges. People who are fleeing a disaster, going wherever or as far as they can manage to go, without savings or a job or home at their destination, are incredibly vulnerable.

Today, Americans coming from coastal states are already demonized in certain circles. In harder times, the temptation to demonize and criminalize jobless and homeless people from disliked states will be greater than ever, as impoverished outsiders would be seen as a drain on limited resources (“our tax dollars”). Government does not do a great job of protecting Americans from hate crimes now. In future, it may have even less power to do so, or it may not wish to try. Anything you can do to avoid having to travel as a refugee through communities and regions harboring many people who would hate you is to your benefit.

In this work, I will propose that as many individuals as possible alter their life plans to enable them to take part in a managed retreat from certain clearly overpopulated and unsustainable areas. These include, especially, large urban areas in deserts, future deserts (i.e., most of the southwestern U.S.), and low-lying coastal areas, particularly those that will lack sufficient regional ecosystem services to supply those cities’ basic needs, or that face high risks of being overwhelmed by fire or flood. In the long run, as we will see, most of these regions are unsustainable in their present form. They have to decline in population or at least consumption, because it will be physically impossible for them to keep growing, no matter what is done to try to prop them up. Some of these areas are at graver short-term risk than others, but the younger you are now, the more likely it is that if you remain in any of them, you will face severely unpleasant or unlivable conditions in future.

Of course, if everyone could follow my advice and did so at once, it would create the feared state of mass unemployment and homelessness. The millions of residents of Las Vegas can’t all pack up and move to La Crosse, say, or any other better-positioned city or town, at the same time. But that’s not going to happen. The most that could possibly happen as a result of efforts to create an organized early movement of voluntary migration is that a greater number of people begin, one by one, moving out of the areas of greatest risk. If they take my advice, they won’t all move to the same place; a few more here and there in each of many destination communities, over a period of years, gives time for local housing and industry to adapt to the extra people.

Equally important, anyone who’s now living in relatively sustainable regions can vow not to be lured into the more-threatened areas by a nice job or retirement community. The huge urban areas in drought, fire, and flood zones are expanding not only by births, but because people keep moving there. If people stop moving in, the size and impact of future crises will be reduced a little—and, at least, anyone who doesn’t move into those areas won’t be affected by those crises. These climate red zones have been gaining population because they have been considered more desirable, usually for good reasons, such as high-paying jobs, cultural diversity, warm weather, and attractive scenery. However, I hope to persuade you that those criteria are no longer the best ones to use in choosing a home, and moreover, that your quality of life could be even better in a place currently perceived as less desirable.

The outline of this work is as follows. First, I will very briefly review the layers of cascading problems our country is facing. I will assume that you already are aware of climate change, so will not take the space to try to explain the evidence of its reality (and anyone who wishes to argue this point will be invited to leave). Rather, I will only touch on the most important general predictions of its effects.

Next, I will address the political conditions in the United States. Though the electorate has been equally polarized in the past (sometimes without a civil war following), we see increasingly extreme polarization regarding the essential issue of whether government should be democratic or authoritarian, coupled with increases in hostile propaganda and even calls for mass murder. America has become a semi-democracy at grave risk of civil war. I will argue that the formal or effective breakup of the U.S. into several smaller successor nations is a possible, perhaps even desirable consequence of these crises. I will therefore suggest that migrants, especially younger people and those with children, should prioritize the likely future regional, but not local, political climate in selecting a home.

I will review the specific areas of the United States that are least sustainable and most overpopulated for the future. If you live in one of the most at-risk areas, I will strongly encourage you to consider moving to one of the more sustainable regions if you are able to do so. We will explore how you can identify the region where you might best live, based on economic, ecological and political issues, then use currently available resources to find towns that might suit you. Since most people likely to be migrating in the near future will be urban residents, I hope to convince urbanites that most of them have many possible destinations that would offer a better quality of life, if approached correctly, than an increasingly threatened and dysfunctional major city. If each person moving to a given region chooses among the many potential destination towns and cities using personal or idiosyncratic criteria, the problem of excessive influx into a few places, causing worsened employment and housing situations and local resentment, will be minimized. I discuss some criteria for selecting preferred destinations, and explain why local political climate should be de-emphasized, though not discarded altogether.

I will first focus on migration to the northeastern portion of the United States and states peripheral to the Northeast, where most proactive, voluntary climate migrants should probably prefer to go. I am a strong believer in secular, multiracial democracy, and this is the region where there is by far the greatest hope of preserving it. I will, however, also evaluate states in the Southeast, the best destination for those who prefer right-wing, religiously influenced government. For each potential destination state I will set up a post that suggests some specific towns, cities, or regions in each that appear to be worth considering as new homes, depending upon individual circumstances. Readers of this blog will be encouraged to contribute based on their own knowledge.

I also plan to cover some discussion of financial and economic issues, including housing choices; affording a move; potentially beneficial options for employment and education; and decisions to be made by the retired or those nearing retirement. I’ll wrap up with some comments on building community, including how to fit into a new community, how to get along with people of the other political faction, why you should help your friends and family move, and why you should buy a gun and shoot your TV. Eventually, I will wrap up with some discussions of economic issues, including housing, employment and education, and retirement, and social issues relating to the transition to a different type of community.

These blog posts are based on my book, which is now available as a free PDF on Internet Archive and as a Kindle text and paperback through Amazon for anyone who prefers those formats. (At least, you can now check out the PDF version to see if you like it before paying for it.) All texts posted here may be reprinted for noncommercial use under the Creative Commons license terms CC BY-NC-ND if you provide a link to the original source.

I have been researching this issue for quite some time so am more knowledgeable than your average bear, but do not claim to be an Expert, merely a fellow citizen giving a personal opinion. Feedback is highly welcome. Those who disagree with my views are welcome to do so civilly. However, I won’t allow the comment section to play host to factional disputes, and no expressions of bigotry of any kind will be allowed. We are facing a very difficult time in the coming years, and learning how to treat one another as human beings again is perhaps one of the few things we can do to mitigate the coming disaster. Thanks very much for contributing to that goal!

 

 

Comments

[lp9]

Sounds very helpful - I look forward to your upcoming posts!

I'm currently a resident of the highest point in Baltimore (elevation chose after I lived in New Orleans during Katrina), but my extended family is all based in my small, Rust Belt hometown. I'm in that dual mode of setting up my current house for collapse while also keeping eyes and ears open for if/when I need to move.

[next_migration]

Many thanks! I tend to think that all the big eastern megalopolises are greatly overpopulated and best left alone, but don't really know much about Baltimore; I've only visited once and that was close to 25 years ago.

Might I ask where your family's hometown is?

[lp9]

The town is so small that I don't want to share the name here (you could send a letter addressed to my parents' name and the town and it would get to them!), but it's between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Basically the rural areas of The Foundry (in the "Nine Nations" vocab). If you are doing regional posts, I'd be happy to comment with a very detailed list of pros and cons of that area as they relate to relocation in a time of decline and collapse.

We didn't choose Baltimore, but moved here for jobs. Its population has been declining for a long time. Water is abundant and of good quality, held in massive reservoirs outside the city. To the north and west there is a lot of prime farmland, much of it being underutilized as horse farms. A bit further north there is a strong Amish community. There is a robust regional agriculture scene. BUT that's not to say the resources are adequate to deal with major disruptions, like when the city core along the water starts to flood to the point where business goes elsewhere, or potential issues caused by the masses of people living in DC or the suburbs to the south. And pollution is a concern for sure, especially as sea level rise and floodwaters start to hit industrial facilities. Crime is already at pretty high levels and only increasing.

[next_migration]

I don't cover Maryland in my book - I just think all those dinky, expensive northeastern states already have plenty of people. But I may be missing things. On the other hand, okay, there is underutilized farmland, but if people start building suburbs on it, where will the land come from to feed Baltimore locally if food from California and Oklahoma is no longer available?

Your comments on Ohio and Pennsylvania would be very welcome. Tamanous2020 is also interested in Ohio, so I'll prioritize that, even though I think it has some significant downsides for inmigrants.

[lp9]

Yeah, that makes sense to not to encourage additional population increases in NE states. Baltimore has thousands and thousands of abandoned rowhomes that could house new residents, theoretically. It currently has about 575k residents; in 1950 it had almost a million. But, I could easily see farmland being churned into new suburbs (already happening) alongside the expansion of existing slums into much, much larger slums. Just because I can drive through miles of nearly empty neighborhoods full of houses, doesn't mean that there will be some sort of neat and orderly movement to rehab those houses and fill them with people. Plus, the very rural Eastern Shore of Maryland (home to Perdue chicken) will eventually be underwater.

[tamanous2020]

Thanks so much for this project! As a SW based individual, I've been watching the declining local water supply and increasing population figures with horror. I'd been doing my own relocation research, but this blog has already been rather helpful in analyzing the situation.

[next_migration]

I've already completely abandoned the order of text from the book. Is there any state you'd like to have kicked to the front of the queue? (Since you are one of three readers and the only one who says they are thinking of moving...)

[tamanous2020]

If you wouldn't mind! Given my own conditions like family, job, life needs etc, I've been mainly looking towards Indiana, Ohio, Southern Michigan and potentially the Chicago area in Illinois, in that order. Any thoughts on those areas would be very helpful.

[next_migration]

Yoicks, I say avoid Chicago like the plague. No offense, Chicago. Just way too many people up there. However, surprisingly, the foodshed analysis on which I rely heavily (Julie Kurtz & colleagues, 2020) says that the Chicago metro could be provisioned within a reasonably small distance. Chicago also does not have the problem of being disenfranchised that many upper-Midwestern big cities does. I may just have too much anti-megalopolis bias, but whenever I've gone to Chicago, I've been delighted to leave again.

Indiana and Ohio are politically problematic to me, but I agree that if that doesn't trouble you, Indiana has a LOT of potential. So does southern Michigan. I'll try to get the discussions of these states out soon!

[tamanous2020]

Agreed, Chicago would not be ideal, but has to be an option for me considering the type of white collar work I'm engaged in currently. I was surprised by how highly it rated on the foodshed report as well. I suppose there's some benefit to it originally being a major hub for midwestern food production.

Much appreciate you analyzing those areas!

[lp9]

Happy to weigh in on Michigan in the comments too; my husband is from there.

[lincoln_lynx]

I don't know much about Indiana but what do you consider problematic there?

[next_migration]

That's explained in my introduction to Ohio, just posted. My primary hope for the future is that when (or if, if you like) the Union breaks up, we can get a couple of contiguous nations of survivable size out of the eastern U.S., one of which could preserve secular democracy, the other of which could, well, do whatever it prefers. I try to predict which way states ought to go, and advise migrants to direct themselves accordingly, consistent with their preferences.

Indiana is like Ohio-squared. Its historical cultural affiliations are with its northerly neighbors, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio - the Midwestern to Rust Belt north. Contrarily, it's got a strong Christian nationalist tendency now that doesn't seem to be entirely due to gerrymandering (though much of Indianapolis and the northern tier of Chicago-metro counties certainly don't participate). If the Union broke up, would it be part of the north, or part of the new Confederacy? Having no idea what the outcome would be, I would not want to move there, nor would I be comfortable encouraging anyone else who cared about their future form of government to do so.

That said, I do cover it in a brief chapter on a few in-between unpredictable states. There are many nice smaller cities and towns in Indiana. I wound up concluding that if you're one of the last 47 people in America who doesn't care about politics or what kind of government you have, Indiana could be a very good choice.

[lincoln_lynx]

I see your point.

I'm considering a move (Currently Upstate South Carolina, the nearest major city is Charlotte, NC) but know that wherever I move I'll find the political situation unpalatable.

[next_migration]

It is an unfortunate fact that no state's government is seriously addressing our impending environmental and resource crises. The GOP has chosen to say there are no such crises and if everything isn't great, it's because of the wickedness of scapegoats. The Democrats know that if they tell the public that the party's got to start winding up, to use Richard Heinberg's metaphor, they'll lose the next election. Besides, many of the goals and projects they support are expensive and will be less feasible in a poorer future (especially when the public has been convinced that taxing the superrich is unthinkable), and they can't bear to admit that their hopes of a better world will fail. So both parties pretend that there are no limits, which makes it impossible to prepare for them. I would wish for a third party, but we know what would happen to a third party that told the wealthier classes they needed to tighten their belts: it's called the Green Party, right?

SW Idaho

[(Anonymous)]

I look forward to following your blog. My husband and I are not young (70 and 63) and moved from Seattle to the Boise, Idaho area over 20 years ago. The regional population has exploded over those two decades, and the two decades before that, which is worrying because this is high desert. We're not hooked up to the Colorado River (thank heavens) but drought years are becoming more frequent and the writing is on the wall.

There are plans to start redirecting 10-15% of the water that ends up in one of our water treatment plants into our irrigation canals over the next few years, but while that's awesome, I can't imagine it's anywhere near enough to close the gap.

People continue to move here, with Californians receiving an unfortunate share of local angst about it. Housing/rent prices skyrocketed. Our humble once 130K house is now notionally worth 450K. This is not healthy.

Valerie

Re: SW Idaho

[next_migration]

I have been to Boise and LOVED it, years ago when I was much less aware of climate predictions. A family member was at the time looking for a possible new home and I encouraged her to consider Boise. I certainly wouldn't encourage a younger person to pick it now - and those housing costs, as you say, are really unreasonable. But Boise is a nice city, amazingly bike- and pedestrian-friendly despite those weirdly gigantic downtown streets, very pleasant to be in.

If I recall correctly a person I met living in a nice neighborhood, with a nice garden, got his garden water from an acequia-like system of a little concrete ditch along the road, and his was only turned on a couple days per week. I assume that was his garden water and not his drinking water too? He did say that when one bought property it was essential to make sure it came with water rights. That probably scared off my relative. She probably envisioned arriving and then having no running water or toilet.

Re: SW Idaho

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for the kind words about Boise, and the delightful story about your adventure and your relative! In the older neighborhoods in particular, the water is turned on during irrigation season (roughly mid-April through mid-September/October depending on supply) and you are assigned your day/time to literally flood your property with water. I've never had that experience, but I hear it works well. The newer neighborhoods (mine is one of them, in Meridian, just next door to Boise) were built with pressurized irrigation systems. Provided it's irrigation season, you can use the water whenever you want for under $100/year. This is a screaming bargain so yes, water rights are a fine thing. Suburban land is mostly former farmland that itself had water rights, which were bought by the developers and divvied up and reassigned to building lots.

There are some serious drawbacks, of course. If you are in an area in which the irrigation water doesn't reach your property, you may still be liable for the annual irrigation fee. You are welcome to upgrade your situation so the water gets piped in, but no doubt this is awfully expensive, and understandably causes all sorts of angst.

The irrigation water in the canals comes directly from reservoirs in the mountains, and if there is not enough precipitation AND a cool enough winter and spring to keep snowpack in the mountains, the reservoirs either don't fill completely, or may need to be discharged prematurely to accommodate a massive melt in early spring, leaving not enough for later in the season. This year, we got a last minute super wet spring and plenty of cool weather which is all that saved us from a very short irrigation season.

Drinking water comes from the acquifer beneath the Treasure Valley, so your relative would've been just fine! At least for another generation or so, right?

The writing is on the wall, though: Every year our irrigation company suggests that choices will need to be made, and basically suburban
watering projects are not, long term, at the top of the priority list. Understandably, IMHO. There are entities (generally farms of some description) with "senior" and "junior" water rights throughout Idaho, and these rights were firmed up not so long ago. If you are "senior" you get rights to the irrigation water before someone who is "junior". Suburbs, I expect, are about as junior as you can get. Still, expect wailing when this happens. This will not be pretty.

Something else anyone who considers moving to SW Idaho should know: After over a century of intensive farming and livestock raising, much of this area has groundwater that is absolutely unfit for drinking. Wells go dry, and even those that do not may have very unhealthy water. Drilling a deeper well is expensive, I hear, and no guarantee it will fix your predicament. I worry about the formerly small farming communities surrounding the Treasure Valley (Treasure Valley = Boise/Meridian/Nampa/Caldwell) as I hear they have an influx of new residents as well. The Treasure Valley has the water infrastructure, and the irrigation system itself, which was built over a century ago. And laws to to go with it all. These smaller communities, no. When there is water trouble, I'd expect it to start there. Too many people, not enough infrastructure, water, or legal precedent perhaps to deal with the inevitable problems that will arise.

I hope I'm wrong. But really, for anyone whose eyes are open even a little bit, the American West is drying up. Some places may survive for a few years or a few decades, but not at the current scale. It seems to me it is clearly unsustainable.

Oregon?

[solarfed]

Morning. Been enjoying these posts, thanks for sharing!

I have been eagerly anticipating a post on Oregon. Are you planning to do a write up on the one and only state that I have ever lived within?

I may or may not live out the remainder of my days here. The biggest draw for me to do so is that I feel a very strong connection to the spirits of the land in my home-town. Fortunately, I do live west of the Cascades; however, there are still many threats around here.

Thanks again for what you are doing!

-Tom

Re: Oregon?

[next_migration]

Hi Tom,

Thanks very much for the kind words! You inspire/motivate me to clean up the last few chapters for posting ASAP.

My personal opinion has been that the Northwest can remain an excellent home for many of its residents, but is not a good destination for large-scale migration. The minority of Oregon that has pleasant climate and plentiful water is pretty well populated, while the eastern part is expected to suffer serious increases in drought and major fires (as well as political extremism, to which not everyone will object).

You did motivate me to go to city-data and do a quick search. It turns out that there are 14 cities in Oregon between ca. 15,000 and 200,000 people, with rainfall over 30" per year, and with cost of living index not over 100. All are claimed to have median gross rent under $1000, though that's surely false nowadays. One is Corvallis, whose housing costs horrified me many years ago. All but two of these cities (Salem and Eugene) are in the 60,000 or less population range, and most are towards the lower end.

Thus, there is room for some inmigration to promising destinations in western Oregon, but not too much. Of course, many migrants could go to places that I wouldn't include in calculations. For example, I wouldn't suggest that early migrants, who are not refugees and have a choice of destinations, go to Portland, which is already expensive, questionably sustainable, and just too big.

Many people from California tend to move to other parts of the West, which is understandable due to its similar landscapes and cultures, but if millions more Californians all decided that Oregon would be the place to go when things get bad, they'd face real problems. There likely won't be enough well-watered land in the West to support the current population of the West, at least at any easily adoptable or tolerable standard of living. That's why I think it's better to strongly encourage people to move east, if they are willing, to a whole region where there will be adequate water for agriculture, industry, and transport.

Re: Oregon?

[solarfed]

Thanks for the reply.

I am not sure I would say my town has plentiful water, but it does have two rivers that run through it. My Dad has measured the daily rainfall for 40 years and recorded the annual average. Our annual average used to be 32" and now it is barely reaching 20".

Another issue with my town and also with some others is air pollution. It is common for air to stagnate for weeks here. Thus even in a rural area the air quality can quickly become extremely unhealthy. Especially with the fires.



-Tom