3 ms·

This is discussed in a book called "The Geography of Risk" "The chief beneficiaries of the land boom at the coast have been the beach towns and property owners

This is discussed in a book called "The Geography of Risk" "The chief beneficiaries of the land boom at the coast have been the beach towns and property owners who perversely shoulder little of the risk of building in harm’s way yet enjoy most of the wealth, the report added." https://longreads.com/2019/09/03/the-geography-of-risk https://longreads.com/2019/09/03/the-geography-of-risk

Animats 7y ago
The biggest flood insurance beneficiary is the Houston TX area. "More flood insurance funds have been paid here than in any other National Flood Insurance Program-participating community."[1] "After the 1940's, the Harris County area did not suffer what would be considered a widespread, regional flood, that is, until June 2001." Since then, 2001, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2015, 2016, and right now. Houston way overbuilt in flood plains. That area has had floods for a century, but the impact was lower when the big losses were herds of cattle. They need higher flood insurance premiums to discourage building. The Florida Keys, Greater Miami, New Orleans, and Houston are just too low-lying for today's hurricanes. New Orleans has everything going wrong - the Mississippi River, hurricane country, and sinking land. [1] https://www.hcfcd.org/flooding-floodplains/harris-countys-flooding-history/ https://www.hcfcd.org/flooding-floodplains/harris-countys-fl...
- selimthegrim 7y ago
  Two of these are not like the others - are the ports (I count Galveston and South Louisiana as part of their nearby bigger cities) just going to be allowed to vanish?
  - fuzzfactor 7y ago
    Depends on motivation and power structure I would think. These are incredibly productive institutions and under normal operation can build enough resources to weather any storm, plus this kind of thing is what's mainly insured when a storm does hit. In response to a gradual rise in sea level, they would be expected to adapt at a glacier's pace but anything is possible. For example the island of Galveston was largely raised 8 feet after the disaster of 1900 as the preferred approach to future mitigation, and that foresight turns out to be about as good as you can get so far when it comes to coping with unforseen sea level rise. You just need to have foresight good enough to forsee the unforseen. Eventually working in industrial environments like Galveston or Texas City will not be that much different than working offshore in the Gulf. Heck, some operators justify working offshore now because it's not much worse than working in a mainland oil field or refinery anyway. Besides traditional businesses of Texas, in South Florida probably agriculture and real estate would suffer first, but I imagine tourism would hold out as long as it could and smuggling would not want to go anywhere either, with their multi-century tradition.
  - sbierwagen 7y ago
    Yes.
- fuzzfactor 7y ago
  Two trends which I am familiar with are the excess development of South Florida and Harris County. Both driven because the county government is funded by taxes on property rather than commerce. To achieve growth in the bureaucracy, taxes have increased as fast as possible, and additional property developed at a growing rate in order to increase its taxable value. In Florida it's lots of building only slightly above sea level so there's risk from the beginning, in Texas as more of the watershed/flood plain is paved neighborhoods that were not at risk before have become underwater estates. >They need higher flood insurance premiums to discourage building. We already have that. Just results in more people becoming uninsurable. Regulation would probably be better, but county governments are incentivizing toward developers who can afford to work around this type of discouragement anyway, which is one of the cases where it pays more than regulation. Now that the damage has been done, the most pro-development Harris County Judge of all is no longer in power, but there's still residual momentum, and it's a little too late. You should have seen it this week. Looks like some "Real Estate" systems have been selling you false estate since the beginning. After all you can not disprove that the purpose of county government is corruption. I can only imagine what would happen if you got unscrupulous developers mixed up with government like this on a larger scale.

Animats 7y ago

The biggest flood insurance beneficiary is the Houston TX area. "More flood insurance funds have been paid here than in any other National Flood Insurance Program-participating community."[1] "After the 1940's, the Harris County area did not suffer what would be considered a widespread, regional flood, that is, until June 2001." Since then, 2001, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2015, 2016, and right now. Houston way overbuilt in flood plains. That area has had floods for a century, but the impact was lower when the big losses were herds of cattle. They need higher flood insurance premiums to discourage building. The Florida Keys, Greater Miami, New Orleans, and Houston are just too low-lying for today's hurricanes. New Orleans has everything going wrong - the Mississippi River, hurricane country, and sinking land. [1] https://www.hcfcd.org/flooding-floodplains/harris-countys-flooding-history/ https://www.hcfcd.org/flooding-floodplains/harris-countys-fl...

selimthegrim 7y ago
Two of these are not like the others - are the ports (I count Galveston and South Louisiana as part of their nearby bigger cities) just going to be allowed to vanish?
- fuzzfactor 7y ago
  Depends on motivation and power structure I would think. These are incredibly productive institutions and under normal operation can build enough resources to weather any storm, plus this kind of thing is what's mainly insured when a storm does hit. In response to a gradual rise in sea level, they would be expected to adapt at a glacier's pace but anything is possible. For example the island of Galveston was largely raised 8 feet after the disaster of 1900 as the preferred approach to future mitigation, and that foresight turns out to be about as good as you can get so far when it comes to coping with unforseen sea level rise. You just need to have foresight good enough to forsee the unforseen. Eventually working in industrial environments like Galveston or Texas City will not be that much different than working offshore in the Gulf. Heck, some operators justify working offshore now because it's not much worse than working in a mainland oil field or refinery anyway. Besides traditional businesses of Texas, in South Florida probably agriculture and real estate would suffer first, but I imagine tourism would hold out as long as it could and smuggling would not want to go anywhere either, with their multi-century tradition.
- sbierwagen 7y ago
  Yes.
fuzzfactor 7y ago
Two trends which I am familiar with are the excess development of South Florida and Harris County. Both driven because the county government is funded by taxes on property rather than commerce. To achieve growth in the bureaucracy, taxes have increased as fast as possible, and additional property developed at a growing rate in order to increase its taxable value. In Florida it's lots of building only slightly above sea level so there's risk from the beginning, in Texas as more of the watershed/flood plain is paved neighborhoods that were not at risk before have become underwater estates. >They need higher flood insurance premiums to discourage building. We already have that. Just results in more people becoming uninsurable. Regulation would probably be better, but county governments are incentivizing toward developers who can afford to work around this type of discouragement anyway, which is one of the cases where it pays more than regulation. Now that the damage has been done, the most pro-development Harris County Judge of all is no longer in power, but there's still residual momentum, and it's a little too late. You should have seen it this week. Looks like some "Real Estate" systems have been selling you false estate since the beginning. After all you can not disprove that the purpose of county government is corruption. I can only imagine what would happen if you got unscrupulous developers mixed up with government like this on a larger scale.