Conor here: And it is of course very difficult to make a personal risk assessment since the US lacks public, model-based maps that include the risks. Instead we have proprietary vendors—with their own incentives to gloss over dangers—releasing their own, often conflicting information that can confuse homebuyers. The number one concern is of course to keep the money flowing; Zillow, for example, just recently dropped climate risk scores from its residential real estate listings due to complaints that they were hurting sales.
It really wouldn’t be that hard for the US to create public, model-based maps. Susan Crawford at Moving Day explains what is necessary:
We urgently need a fully funded, modernized federal flood mapping program that is designed to show not just today’s risk, but also how flooding is expected to change in the future. Robust federal mapping should be the default national platform, with datasets open to all and well-documented, with methods and sources behind them clearly explained. That’s the framework that can provide an official, verified basis for where floodplain development rules apply, where flood insurance is required for mortgages, and what elevation and flood-proofing standards building codes have to meet.
It would cost up to $12 billion.
By Ivis García, an associate Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at Texas A&M University. Originally published at The Conversation.
Picture this: You’re looking to buy a place to live, and you have two options.
Option A is a beautiful home in California near good schools and job opportunities. But it goes for nearly a million dollars – the median California home sells for US$906,500 – and you’d be paying a mortgage that’s risen 82% since January 2020.
Option B is a similar home in Texas, where the median home costs less than half as much: just $353,700. The catch? Option B sits in an area with significant hurricane and flood risk.
As a professor of urban planning, I know this isn’t just a hypothetical scenario. It’s the impossible choice millions of Americans face every day as the U.S. housing crisis collides with climate change. And we’re not handling it well.
The Numbers Tell the Story
The migration patterns are stark. Take California, which lost 239,575 residents in 2024 – the largest out-migration of any state. High housing costs are a primary driver: The median home price in California is more than double the national median.
Where are these displaced residents going? Many are heading to southern and western states like Florida and Texas. Texas, which is the top destination for former California residents, saw a net gain of 85,267 people in 2024, much of it from domestic migration. These newcomers are drawn primarily by more affordable housing markets.
This isn’t simply people chasing lower taxes. It’s a housing affordability crisis in motion. The annual household income needed to qualify for a mortgage on a mid-tier California home was about $237,000 in June 2025, a recent analysis found – over twice the state’s median household income.
Over 21 million renter households nationwide spent more than 30% of their income on housing costs in 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. For them and others struggling to get by, the financial math is simple, even if the risk calculation isn’t.
I find this troubling. In essence, the U.S. is creating a system where your income determines your exposure to climate disasters. When housing becomes unaffordable in safer areas, the only available and affordable property is often in riskier locations – low-lying areas at flood risk in Houston and coastal Texas, or higher-wildfire-risk areas as California cities expand into fire-prone foothills and canyons.
Climate Risk Becomes Part of the Equation
The destinations drawing newcomers aren’t exactly safe havens. Research shows that America’s high-fire-risk counties saw 63,365 more people move in than out in 2023, much of that flowing to Texas. Meanwhile, my own research and other studies of post-disaster recovery have shown how the most vulnerable communities – low-income residents, people of color, renters – face the greatest barriers to rebuilding after disasters strike.
Consider the insurance crisis brewing in these destination states. Dozens of insurers in Florida, Louisiana, Texas and beyond have collapsed in recent years, unable to sustain the mounting claims from increasingly frequent and severe disasters like wildfires and hurricanes. Economists Benjamin Keys and Philip Mulder, who study climate change impacts on real estate, describe the insurance markets in some high-risk areas as “broken”. Between 2018 and 2023, insurers canceled nearly 2 million homeowner policies nationwide – four times the historically typical rate.
Yet people keep moving into risky areas. For example, recent research shows that people have been moving toward areas most at risk of wildfires, even holding wealth and other factors constant. The wild beauty of fire-prone areas may be part of the attraction, but so is housing availability and cost.
The Policy Failures Behind the False Choice
In my view, this isn’t really about individual choice – it’s about policy failure. The state of California aims to build 2.5 million new homes by 2030, which would require adding more than 350,000 units annually. Yet in 2024, the state only added about 100,000 – falling dramatically short of what’s needed. When local governments restrict housing development through exclusionary zoning, they’re effectively pricing out working families and pushing them toward risk.
My research on disaster recovery has consistently shown how housing policies intersect with climate vulnerability. Communities with limited housing options before disasters become even more constrained afterward. People can’t “choose” resilience if resilient places won’t let them build affordable housing.
The federal government started recognizing this connection – to an extent. For example, in 2023, the Federal Emergency Management Agency encouraged communities to consider “social vulnerability” in disaster planning, in addition to things like geographic risk. Social vulnerability refers to socioeconomic factors like poverty, lack of transportation or language barriers that make it harder for communities to deal with disasters.
However, the agency more recently stepped back from that move – just as the 2025 hurricane season began.
In my view, when a society forces people to choose between paying for housing and staying safe, that society has failed. Housing should be a right, not a risk calculation.
But until decision-makers address the underlying policies that create housing scarcity in safe areas and fail to protect people in vulnerable ones, climate change will continue to reshape who gets to live where – and who gets left behind when the next disaster strikes.
Who is ever going to have a choice between California or Texas as a place to live?
Employment and family generally dictates where someone lives unless they have the resources to be financially independent and then be willing to break off from family and friends.
I think that the article’s thesis is sound, but a better comparison would be intra-market. A housing cost map for any particular market is often a substitute for general risk assessment for that market.
The author states housing is a right. I tend to agree but those who advocate that don’t seem to specify if one has a right to pick the location and nature of the housing. I think Singapore and China provide housing but control where you must live. Is housing in Santa Monica or Easthampton or Miami Beach on the waterfront a right?
In Southern California, moving into the hills is not for the poor – properties above the smog and crime of urban centers command a massive premium. Given the growth of remote work (especially in California), this greatly lessens the penalty of gridlock commuting time. For urban centers to be livable requires significant investment in physical and social infrastructure, which is just not keeping up with maintenance, much less demand.
The title of this post, “The Housing Crisis Is Forcing Americans to Choose Between Affordability and Safety,” made me think, “yeah, the story of my life,” before I realized it concerned the effects of climate change– a very different hazard than what I was initially thinking of.
Years ago, myself other bystanders were nearly caught in a driveby shooting which we watched from behind the plate glass windows of a video rental store located on the corner of Damen and Division in Chicago, back when that neighborhood offered cheap rent but was rather dicey. Surprisingly, the shooter had the presence of mind to hold his fire as his target ran past the windows of the store– I know this because he and I were looking directly at each other. No crime or action movies needed that night, for sure.
Myself, I am seriously considering a tiny house on wheels if I remain in the US (which isn’t my first option). One advantage that these offer is the possibility of moving your domicile out of harm’s way, away from potential dangers. This type of housing is rapidly becoming a more viable option as acceptance of these is growing more common throughout the US.
But hasn’t California with its fires, earthquakes and hillside real estate always been ground zero for safety risks? After all they make movies about it. People want to live there because of the climate just as other “Cadillac Desert” states like Arizona attract those who prefer life without winter. Let the government figure out the water problem that made the West sparsely populated for much of the country’s history.
Here in SC we are getting some of the inflow and cities like Nashville and Charlotte are booming. Yes we had Helene so even Appalachia is not immune but my town also shrugged it off with remarkable speed. Meanwhile Florida continues to boom and CA real estate fails to crash given the heavy concentration of the politically powerful.
A friend who tracks such things, mentioned that we are down to 566 AirBnB’s here in Tiny Town, off from a high of 618 a few months ago. There are 1,300 domiciles here and almost half of them are short term rentals.
It all being a new concept, there has never been a ‘shaking out’ period, and every last one of them is ‘pre-staged’ ready to be put on the market say tomorrow if you’d like, and there’s no pesky things such as changing the kids school, or leaving the neighborhood and all your friends behind, because there aren’t any!
My daughter has been looking for a house/condo in the Montclair, NJ area, for the past 6 weeks. I was checking Zillow, back when they had the flood/ wind/ heat/ bad air maps, and we eliminated whole swathes of ‘affordable’ neighborhoods, due to flood risk. Amazing how many rivers there are in that area.
Then, the flood map feature disappeared and I thought I had imagined it, until last week when the news about Zillow ditching the feature appeared.
She works remotely most of the time, although needs to go into the Manhattan office once a week or so, plus, friends, community involvement, etc., so moving out of the area is not an option. Yet.
But, the poor have always been relegated to less desirable areas. If you have ever lived in a mobile home estate (aka, trailer park), you know they are built on land that the more well-off residents don’t want. The rich live on the hill, the poor, in the flood plain below.
These kinds of problems have their root in the commoditization of housing, along with the myth of the “American Dream”. In my view most housing should be publicly owned and publicly maintained. There should be no expectation of accruing wealth through home ownership. Government can plan for housing needs and build accordingly. The amount of housing provided will be based on need, rather than want or desire. One benefit that arises immediately is that “keeping up with the Joneses” will fade as housing will no longer be seen as a marker of wealth and status.
“But until decision-makers address the underlying policies that create housing scarcity in safe areas…”
Please stop it. Stop it about housing scarcity in safe areas. Safe areas or unsafe areas, there is no housing scarcity, no “supply” issue—anywhere. The current housing crisis is simply—and only—an AFFORDABILITY issue. Anyone who pays attention will notice that millions of second homes everywhere are sitting vacant. Why? Usually speculation. Therefore, governments in numerous countries have sensibly introduced empty home taxes.
Anyone who pays attention will notice that many condos (otherwise rentable) have been converted into Air BnBs. In response, many governments have sensibly introduced regulations on the rentals of condos. Those selfsame governments seem to know what the problem is. It ain’t one of supply. It is, to put it simply, speculation in real estate and nothing more.
Until articles such as this start addressing the root causes of this speculation there is no point in reading them—or, for that matter, writing them. The root cause of the ongoing speculation in real estate is fifteen years of ZIRP plus generous tax treatment of borrowing costs. Hence, and inevitably, the current corporatization of most real estate properties.
The Fed saved the housing market back in 2010. It also saved the banks which, heavily invested in real estate, were of course its priority. Unfortunately, in saving them, it destroyed the economy for a couple of generations. Just talk to any young person today or anyone who doesn’t own a house. They have all been screwed by ZIRP, the Fed, and large corporations investing in real estate with borrowed money at “Fed-friendly” rates.
The author of this article needs to wake up and see what has gone on for fifteen years and is still going on and stop deflecting from other very serious economic issues with climate-change migration BS.
As a resident of the area with the second highest flood risk in the nation–Sacramento (New Orleans is #1), I can testify to the malfeasance of planners. As long as it’s profitable to develop agricultural floodplain surrounded by weak levees. Profit trumps all other considerations, including survival.
Flood-prone Houston has literally no zoning, but looks exactly like Sacramento–sprawl except older parts of the city. Why? Because that’s how the bankers want to finance it. Housing as an asset is their agenda, and the bigger the loan, the better. California’s proposition 13 that limits real estate taxes puts the housing-as-asset on steroids. Of course “White Flight,” avoiding the icky brown people, was one early incentive for more sprawl.
The defining characteristic of sprawl: every significant trip requires getting in a car. Owning a car is a requirement for every driving-age adult, and a regressive “tax” that favors auto dealers and asphalt companies. It’s also contributing to America’s ill health since it eliminates walking.
Meanwhile California’s zoning is a mess, impossible to implement and easy to game. (See here for the whole story).
Two pieces of better news: Jerry Brown vetoed a CA state bill authorizing public banks, but Gavin Newsom reversed that veto when it was proposed again. Several such banks are in the works, and the East Bay Bank is open now.
California actually has a public bank for infrastructure, but its underwriting was so restricted it couldn’t do the really big projects. The Bay Bridge rebuild was financed by Goldman Sachs, as was Sacramento’s basketball arena.
The second bit of better news: The state now mandates “Complete Streets” for all new development. These offer access for cyclists and pedestrians–required for public transit to work, as is density.