Which U.S. Cities Are Safest From Climate Change?

Climate havens or climate destinations are cities that are situated in places that avoid the worst effects of natural disasters and have the infrastructure to support a larger population. Many of these legacy cities are in the U.S. Northeast. Watch the video to see where Americans can move to avoid the risk of wildfires and flooding from rising seal levels, and learn how these destination cities can translate climate migration into an economic triumph.

Millions of Americans are living in communities with precarious climate conditions, in houses that feel overpriced.

There is a solution for many of these people, though: Move to one of the so-called climate havens.

Climate havens or climate destinations are situated in places that avoid the worst effects of natural disasters and have the infrastructure to support a larger population. Many of these legacy cities are located in the Northeast.

Jesse Keenan, associate professor of real estate at Tulane University, named the following cities as possible climate havens:

Asheville, North Carolina
Buffalo, New York
Burlington, Vermont
Detroit, Michigan
Duluth, Minnesota
Madison, Wisconsin
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Rochester, New York

Anna Marandi, who served as the program manager of climate resilience and sustainability at the National League of Cities, added four other places to the safe haven list: Ann Arbor, Michigan; Charleston, South Carolina; Chico, California; and perhaps surprisingly, Orlando, Florida.

Orlando makes the cut, Marandi said, because the city has introduced measures to decarbonize. While the natural environment, such as being a noncoastal city, is an advantage, cities can “earn” the designation by working to provide benefits like affordable housing and being committed to economic sustainability.

“I see climate migration as an opportunity for these cities to avoid the mistakes of urban sprawl,” Marandi said. “They often have a vibrant, walkable downtown that might just need a little bit of revitalization.”

Keenan also stressed that climate haven cities need to help their own residents, which in turn will attract more climate migrants.

“This isn’t we’re going to build a community for tomorrow,” he said. “We’re going to build a community for today. And that’s going to be the foundation for the building of a community for tomorrow.”

Correction: Anna Marandi at the National League of Cities added two other places to the climate haven list: Ann Arbor, Michigan, and perhaps surprisingly, Orlando, Florida. An earlier version misstated the cities.

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Which U.S. Cities Are Safest From Climate Change?

[MrFluffelufagus]

This screams, "How do I make this someone else's problem?" Cant wait for millionaires and billionairs buy up property in these ares, ruin their economies, local governments, laws, natural habitat, and do nothing to actually change the issue they're running from. I live, work, and have grown up around Aspen Colorado and the one thing that never fails is how the property owners scream about how bad climate change is while they sip on imported wines, drive 7.0L trucks, have houses with bigger cooling and heating systems than the mall of america has, and how they fly out every weekend in their private jet from Florida or Texas to go skiing on snowmass, only to just leave their litter all over the mountain side. The problem will never be fixed if people run from it. Sadly the ones that contribute to the problem the most, are the ones that can run from it the easiest 😕

[vsuryaR]

How to avoid climate change
World: lower co2 emission, renewable energy, etc
US: move somewhere else

[American_Energy]

So criteria to be safe from climate change include:
1) Cities with affordable housing
2) Cities with green initiatives
3) Cities trying to decarbonize

Ok, I think we have a very different way of determining whether a city is safe from climate change… mainly I’d focus on which climate is going to change the least.

[bobbun]

There might be many reasons to move to Orlando, but I can't imagine that "decarbonizing" makes the city a climate safe haven. Orlando isn't, by itself, the source of the problem, so addressing the problem in that one spot isn't going to stop the sea from rolling in (82 ft. above sea level!) or a hurricane devastating the area.

[Johnrl]

I think this video does a relatively poor job of making any kind of concise point.

I usually like CNBC’s videos, but this one just seemed a little pie in the sky to me.

[andreawallenberger]

July 2023: Did they just say Burlington, Vermont? Burlington and the entire state of VT just endured catastrophic flooding.

[Bnio]

"Cities around the Great Lakes will have a SUPERIOR advantage." I see what he did there.

[akash_goel]

How does decarbonization (on a city level) help with it being affected by climate change? That would mean the city is just prepared better for a fossil-fuel free world. We can have climate change and fossil-fuel independence at the same time.

[wardlobster]

Chico California… these people are irrational. Its running out of water and threatened by Wildfires every year.

[runningfromabear]

Prices for houses in the Muskoka's in Ontario, Canada have been jacked up by international millionaires and billionaires. Tons of lakes, lower risk for forest fires due to Georgian Bay and Lake Huron around it. They've been buying up large tracts and building massive houses with tennis courts and swimming pools and gymnasiums. Builders have talked about underground bunkers in there.

One of my friends has a summer cottage up there that's been in the family for 70 years. They keep getting offers but it's part of their family traditions. But the money offered is crazy, they couldn't afford to buy their own land these days. When we go out on their motorboat, you can see these massive waterfront houses only accessible by helicopter pads or by boat. 20 years ago, these were all tiny 2 bedroom cabins and cottages that families drove up from Toronto enjoy.

The wealthiest have already bought/built climate safe homes.

[arizonanative]

I’ve been in Phoenix since 1990. Drought now causing massive water shortage, and I’ll be heading out to … somewhere. I have followed climate change for years, not shocked by what’s happening. Very sad that I must leave.

[elainegoad]

I live near Asheville NC and affordable housing is sparse around this area and there are lost of homeless in Asheville. Al lot of people live in mobile homes or slum trailer parks where the lot rents are high. There are a lot of flood and forest fires in the mountains as well s rock/mountain slides caused by erosion from taking down trees and removing big boulders from mountains to build mountainside homes. Human have caused the damage all over and bandaids won't fix the problems.

[darceylopez]

This was posted one year ago. After the crazy weather in summer, 2023, fires in Canada pushing smoke into the northern US and the crazy rain and hurricanes that are coming to the east coast in fall of 2023, I think we can all assume that no place is really safe.

I live in one of the best places for weather, Boulder, CO and our nearby towns of Louisville and Superior nearly burned to the ground. We were so lucky, the emergency response and evacuation were incredible!!! Plus a little snow and cold temperatures after the event really helped.

No place is safe from climate change!

[Justindorton]

While Detroit is still suffering from its past issues, it is on an upward trend, but one thing that could make Detroit a good destination is how massive the city is compared to how few citizens live here from decades of people moving away, which should make land value and housing cheap. It's already an established metropolis, it just needs some work to bring it back to it's former glory.

[karenann]

Central New York is a lovely area. Little problem with severe weather and lots of fresh water. Syracuse has a good infrastructure, housing. Syracuse University and several hospitals are major employers. The winters are becoming milder. I love this area!

[temperanceluv]

This will happen faster than we can adapt. TBH, thinking that you can just move away from the issue is ignoring huge issues like Where will our food be farmed if huge swaths of the country aren’t habitable anymore.

[themissinglink]

This is a concept known as "managed retreat". The idea is that despite our best efforts, we won't be able to stop things. Even if we got everyone on the same page, many believe we're fighting a losing battle and that we need to not only work towards making things better, but also plan for the worst (which many believe is inevitable).

Avoiding plastic bags and recycling may make people feel better, but we need massive change across the world. We would need to eliminate the use of all fossil fuels and greenhouse gases including gasoline, natural gas, refrigerants, etc. Most people don't appreciate the scale of what would be required. Others may, but also realize that they won't be alive when the worst happens...

[Skiskiski]

The bottom line to me is the availability of fresh water. If you get your water from glaciers in the mountains and they completely melt, the rest is irrelevant.

[OldJackWolf]

I wouldn't pick anything south of the Mason Dixon line, nor close to any nuclear power plants. And we found a big selection of great but affordable homes we could buy in Erie, PA. And after 5 summers here, we love it. Winters are a lot milder than we expected too with tons of things to do within 10 minutes. Wine country is lovely too. And we've been better preparing the house we purchased with Hardiboard, a home generator, etc. And don't forget to check the soil survey before your final selection - the soil shows the past history of the area, whether its landslides, floods, etc, and if it happened before, it will happen again and probably in a bigger way.

[HominidPetro]

Lol LA to Duluth, yall it is winter from October to May up here, we are still getting nights in temps at low 40s