“As the Sun Belt suffers from increasing vulnerability, the question is can New England benefit from that?” asks Climate Alpha’s Greg Lindsay in The Boston Globe, framing a story exploring whether the region’s climate resilience might spark a reversal of the region’s migration patterns.
Not so fast, say the other experts quoted. A much bigger factor than climate is the region’s dramatic shortfall of affordable housing — a problem made worse by the NIMBYism of local residents. What good does it do New England to be a climate haven if no one can move there? But that’s all the reason to start planning — and building — for tomorrow’s arrivals now, says Climate Alpha founder Dr. Parag Khanna.
“You don’t want this kind of reckless climate gentrification overrunning places where you get crowding out and pricing ordinary people out of the market,” Khanna said. “If you just think with a rigorous scientific lens, you should be thinking about the places that would be more resilient [and] pre-designing in the sense of sustainable technology and enlarging the capacity of those geographies to absorb greater populations.”
At Climate Alpha, we build tools for planners, developers, and investors to start preparing for the future now. Whether its our Resilience Scores for 40,000 ZIP codes, our risk-adjusted valuations for real estate every year through 2040, or our patent-pending scenario forecaster, we offer our customers the scientific lens they need to separate hype from opportunities. Visit www.climatealpha.ai to learn more.
