next_migration | I wanna go back to Dixie

Here, continuing my plan laid out in the last post, I’m presenting introductory comments from my chapter on Southeastern states. I suspect that most people who would be proactive climate migrants at this stage of the game would be better off in the Northeast. However, I don’t want to be prejudiced in that regard (conservatives are also capable of observing shrinking reservoirs or smelling smoke in the air, even if they aren't willing to term these things "climate change"!), so barring special requests, I’ll alternate posts about Northern and Southern states thereafter.

If you have concluded that you’d be most comfortable in the Southeast, for whatever reason, there are lots of places you could live. Firstly, avoid any low-lying areas near the Gulf or Atlantic Coasts. These areas will get hit over and over by increasingly strong hurricanes, flooding, and pollution spread by the flooding, and rebuilding will become less affordable as time goes by.

I strongly recommend avoiding Florida altogether, or leaving altogether if you live there. First, its population is already awfully large. Second, the situation of people in low-lying coastal areas will become increasingly difficult, and they may start deciding to migrate north and/or inland so they can sell their property before it loses most of its value. That would put increasing pressure on property values and rents in northern Florida. Much of the state’s total land area is quite low-lying, and the current administration for culture-war reasons might not only refuse to acknowledge climate change but actively try to prevent cities from engaging in mitigation efforts. People should be leaving Florida, not moving in.

Louisiana is also a questionable destination choice. Human activities, as noted previously, are already wrecking the southern coastal region. Southern Louisiana is home to a distinctive regional culture and forced climate migration would be particularly traumatic for many lifelong residents if they were forced to move into a very different cultural milieu. Northern Louisiana is culturally distinct from the southern part of the state, but at least it’s close by and the southern culture isn’t totally unfamiliar there, making it a more tolerable choice for many than moving out of state. Most of the available space in northern Louisiana ought to be left for those whose homes in southern Louisiana are being destroyed.

I also suggest avoiding Texas, though I do make some recommendations for conservatives who insist on moving there or residents who might wish to migrate within the state. The western half will be hit badly by the expected megadrought, so inmigration is certainly to be avoided. The eastern half has several oversized urban populations, and the Gulf Coast area is very vulnerable to hurricanes. Texas’ independent electrical grid, designed to permit money to be funneled to multimillionaires rather than maintenance and upgrades, is in worse shape than that of any other part of the country. Service has already been lethally unreliable during climate change-influenced extreme weather and may well continue to worsen.

If you are moving to the Southeast because you want to live under very conservative government, avoid Virginia and North Carolina, and possibly even Georgia, where you might someday find that the population has changed enough to make the governance substantially different than you had expected. I discuss Georgia in this chapter because of its geographic and historical associations, but note the caveats. Georgia also has few very promising localities outside the overbuilt cities, and Kurtz et al.’s foodshed analyses report that the cities would require rather large foodsheds even on a low-meat diet. I therefore recommend that most migrants do not consider moving to these borderland or atypical Southern states, though residents may wish to move within them in order to get out of large urban areas.

Several states have metropolitan areas that require large foodsheds according to the analysis of Kurtz et al., either because they are in montane areas with limited agricultural productivity or because they are of unduly large size already. Rural areas in other parts of those states might be fine, but the oversized urban areas should be avoided. Southern states that appear to be best positioned in this specific sense include Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Kentucky, western Tennessee, and the eastern part of the Carolinas, as well as Louisiana and east Texas, which, as noted, have future problems that won’t have affected an analysis based on current conditions. Unfortunately, some of the more “sustainable” states have avoided over-urbanization by having such economic and social difficulties that many people who migrate from the countryside prefer to leave the state altogether.

I presume that most migrants to this region will wish to avoid big cities. That leaves huge amounts of real estate in the wet parts of the South to consider. Poverty and crime are often relatively high in smaller Southern communities; violence and drugs are particular problems in the chronically depressed Appalachian region. Public transportation in most Southern states is limited at best. Many small towns are unwelcoming to strangers, especially ones who are perceived as Yankees, so moving to a bigger town or small city, at least initially, is a much safer strategy, especially if you do not have a job in hand before you move.

Some states clearly have more problems than others, and might rationally be considered less desirable. However, I presume that you are familiar with the political culture of the region, so refrain from repeatedly noting where health care and education are lousy because the state government thinks funding them would be Socialism. If you have family members who might need a social safety net of some kind to survive, though, do keep in mind that Republican evangelicals aren’t fond of Matthew 25:31–46. Comments on some areas with potential in the Southeastern states are presented in alphabetical order by state.