Mother Jones
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>
This story first appeared on the Atlantic Cities website and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
When disaster strikes the same place twice, distant observers can be left scratching their heads, wondering why residents of high-risk areas return, again and again, to rebuild. Whether it’s the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, the communities along Tornado Alley, or low-lying coastal areas in the Sandy-affected region, it might seem like an easy solution to pick up and move away—to people who don’t actually live in those places.
But the reality is that no word inflames more than “retreat”—as in moving people, even whole towns, away from danger. And altering landscapes to ward off danger from climate change can run afoul of heartfelt and robust interests. Besides their economic investments, people and organizations have all sorts of sunk costs in local communities. “Retreat”—and even more modest alternatives—arouses significant resistance.
Ensuring more resilient communities in the future will require us to find ways to make adaptations more palatable to more people, in part by considering local concerns in the design of resilient infrastructure.
Read More:
