
Heaven or High Water – Selling Miami's Last 50 Years - ollieglass
https://popula.com/2019/04/02/heaven-or-high-water/
======
synctext
Great article on the disconnectedness and short-term-ism:

> She said the main thing is just that Miami was being very forward thinking.
> She mentioned Amsterdam, and how they were making it work, and how the Dutch
> were just the poster child for how this worked, and that they were sorting
> out a way to make this work. “I think the takeaway is just that Miami is
> doing something about it.”

Guess this will take a few floodings, billions dollars write-offs, and giant
cultural shift to sink in. We Dutch people have "dry feet tax". Some of the
organisations that collects those taxes have been founded in the 13th century.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_board_(Netherlands)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_board_\(Netherlands\))

~~~
barry-cotter
As far as I know Florida is basically all limestone, which is porous, so dams
don’t work. The water will seep through the bedrock so you can’t do the same
thing in the Netherlands in Miami.

~~~
EliRivers
Although Miami can do what synctext mentioned, just like in the Netherlands;
raise money, appoint responsible bodies and do something about it.

~~~
barry-cotter
If your city is built on a sponge and in the flattest state to boot your
solutions look like seasteading, not dams and pumps. From an engineering point
of view Miami should be looking to Venice, not Amsterdam. You can’t save
Florida land by pumping so the only way to go is to make your own taller land
or to build what amount to boats or oil rigs.

~~~
kaitai
Adding some fun science: pumps are particularly unsuited to FL because of the
"sponge" that makes up its land. As freshwater is taken up from the soil for
human use, saltwater slowly follows it in (contaminating Fl's freshwater
source). If there's a mismatch in the rate of percolation, you can get
sinkholes -- the land collapses because there isn't water in the cracks
holding it up. [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/science-
behind...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/science-behind-
floridas-sinkhole-epidemic-180969158/)

~~~
HillaryBriss
this also happened in Orange County, California years ago. they'd pumped so
much groundwater that some of the wells near the shore saw saltwater
infiltration. nowadays, Orange County replenishes its existing aquifer by
pumping purified, recycled waste water back in.

------
mcculley
I live in Orlando. I have lived in Florida for all of my life (47 years) and I
also wonder how we are going to adapt. I don't see any long term planning.

A few years ago I was looking for a new office building. Considering the
parking situations, I asked each developer what they were planning for
electric cars, Ubers, and autonomous cars. None of them had a plan. They all
said such changes were 20 years or more away. I was surprised at this because
I predict it taking much less than 20 years for these changes to have a big
impact.

I moved into a newly built high-rise apartment building in downtown Orlando 15
months ago. The building is less than two years old. There are not enough
charging outlets in the garage to accommodate all of the electric cars. It
will be an expensive refit to upgrade the garage.

I don't know how it works elsewhere, but the entire real estate industry in
Florida is not capable of long term thinking.

~~~
yostrovs
It's not expensive to install electric chargers in existing building.
"Planning" for Uber involves what? Having a drive in in front of the building?
How do you plan for non-existent self driving cars? Any practical advice you
can share with the architects here?

~~~
sbierwagen
You can't install more than a handful of chargers without needing to run new
circuits back to the main panel. Installing a hundred (not unreasonable for
future needs!) would probably double the power consumption of the entire
building, and require upgrading the utility connection, maybe even running new
lines to the closest substation.

~~~
mcculley
Not to mention that with such an increase in overall electricity consumption
in the garage, one might want to charge the residents for use of it. Doing so
might require changes to architecture (e.g., putting electric cars on a
different floor or section). There are lots of things to consider and real
estate investors/developers are not thinking of any of them.

------
CPLX
This article is patent nonsense. Nobody knows what the fuck is going to happen
to Miami in 50 years including the author, and an anecdotal poll of front line
real estate agents is mindless.

Even in that context the real estate agent’s worldview seems a lot more
sanguine than hers. History has shown in this country that you’re a lot more
likely to be right predicting that the rich will figure out how to preserve
their assets than betting on the other side of that argument.

A shame because it’s an interesting topic.

What will a city like Miami look like in 50 years? It’s an interesting
question with a lot of unpredictability in it, based on combinations of
climate science, financial predictions, cultural shifts, and some guesswork.

Would have loved to read an article about the various perspectives on that,
but that would have required the author to really do some work. Instead they
decided they knew the answer already and flew there to make fun of people just
trying to get through a day at work.

~~~
Tsubasachan
Rich people have multiple passports, Swiss bank accounts and real estate in
New Zeeland for when shit goes down. They have options. Namely get the hell
out of Dodge. I don't think they are really all that attached to Miami.

~~~
bilbo0s
Miami's mistake was in not developing their port to be a more critical piece
of infrastructure to the United States. It's just not that important as a
port. As a piece of infrastructure in the US portfolio, it's totally
expendable. It's just not a New Orleans, or Norfolk, or Galveston/Houston type
port.

Not sure what the best way forward for Miami is? Dams and pumps won't help,
because they sit on limestone. They could try to recreate Venice, but they
already have some fairly serious issues with algae blooms. Shallow canals will
definitely not help those issues. I don't know? Maybe there will be some new
technique for living with water than comes along, and they can implement that
technology?

But you're correct, at the moment, the most reasonable course of action is
definitely, "Get the hell out of Dodge."

------
cs702
As often seems to be the case in many parts of the US, the city of Miami is
unlikely to muster the political will to do anything about this existential
threat until after the city's businesses and residents have suffered serious,
irreversible consequences. Think permanent loss. Few things can create as much
political will as an irreversible crisis.

By then, of course, it will likely be too late for prevention, so the solution
will have to be technological. Engineers of all kinds will have to come to the
rescue of Miami and many other low-lying/coastal cities in the US.

~~~
kibwen
Honest question: has anyone, engineer or otherwise, yet come to the rescue of
New Orleans in the fourteen years since Katrina? The flooding there, and our
response to it, is so far our best benchmark of what we can expect as sea
levels keep rising.

~~~
ethbro
$14B in new Army Corp of Engineers work, in and around New Orleans?

Doing work isn't sexy, and it doesn't make national news media, but it's what
gets shit done.

And the Army Corp of Engineers has its management problems, but it also tends
to be caught between "We don't believe anything will happen, so we're not
giving you enough funding / control, but are giving you an unfunded mandate"
and "Something happened! How did you let this happen after we trusted you to
fix it?!"

In reality, they do a lot of good work.

~~~
selimthegrim
Seeing as they failed New Orleans in the first place with the levee pilings,
14 billion is penance, not anything forward looking

~~~
ethbro
What would be an appropriate number, then?

~~~
selimthegrim
[https://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/environment/art...](https://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/environment/article_5ac81e86-d1e7-11e6-9177-1bbd55b599b7.html)

$92 billion for the coast and probably another $20 billion for New Orleans? It
doesn’t have to be all at once.

~~~
bilbo0s
You're WAYYY off if you think 92 billion will save coastal cities. So is the
Advocate. The diversity of soil, or bedrock types, of seismic profiles, of
infrastructure, etc.

I call BS on that number.

Obviously places like Galveston/Houston, and New Orleans have to be saved at
any cost, but we have to get realistic about how much this stuff actually
costs. And we have to get real pragmatic, real fast about deciding which of
these ports we really don't need anymore.

All that said, yes, Miami is pretty high on the "Not Needed" list. So, I guess
if the rich people who live there decide to save the place, great. If not, no
biggie. We'll live. It's not like losing Houston, Norfolk, or New Orleans.

~~~
ethbro
Adding in shoreline topography.

It's amazing how different ports are. Some are essentially flood plains.
Others (e.g. the Chesapeake Bay) have surprisingly steep elevation meeting the
water.

Savannah - Charleston - Norfolk are a good east coast trio to illustrate the
differences.

[https://coast.noaa.gov/slr/#/layer/slr/6/-9028683.402612444/...](https://coast.noaa.gov/slr/#/layer/slr/6/-9028683.402612444/3774757.591937678/12/satellite/none/0.8/2050/interHigh/midAccretion)

------
mnm1
I wish she had talked to some loan officers at local banks. I bet she'd get a
different picture to contrast with that of the realtors. Of course realtors
are going to pretend like they don't care even if they do (although they
probably don't). Once the sale goes through, they don't care if the house is
swept away the next day. Banks on the other hand are in this for the next
thirty years. From what I understand, some are hesitant or even refuse to
offer thirty year mortgages in Miami. That's a story if it is indeed true.

~~~
zrobotics
Yep, this is just such a poor article. Would it be shocking if I talked to a
car sales person, pretended I wanted an inefficient (but high-margin) large
pickup truck and the sales person downplayed all the negatives of the vehicle?

Such a shame that the author was so focused on mocking other people and
preaching to the choir, since this is an extremely interesting topic that
deserves a much better article.

------
Animats
One company could change all this: Fitch Ratings.

They do credit ratings of packages of securitized mortgages. Right now, they
don't look at "will parcel be flooded before the mortgage runs out". If they
did, mortgages on submerged property would be much more expensive.

Startup opportunity here. Come up with a system which reads through a package
of mortgages and quantifies the climate change risk. Sell this to the major
traders in securitized mortgages - AIG (yes, them again), Credit Suisse, etc.

~~~
lotsofpulp
This already happens, and the mortgage is subsidized by the federal government
via the National Flood Insurance Program. You wouldn’t be able to get a
mortgage without flood insurance, and since private insurance companies won’t
offer it at a sufficiently low price, the federal government subsidizes the
insurance, therefore allowing the mortgage to be made.

------
nabla9
What happens 50 years from now should matter relatively little for people
living there now. Property owners and banks start discounting the resale value
of the land and large property investments, but it's gradual process.

After discounting property values, Miami will be cheaper place to live in the
future and that means that it may attract even more people.

~~~
acdha
> What happens 50 years from now should matter relatively little for people
> living there now. Property owners and banks start discounting the resale
> value of the land and large property investments, but it's gradual process.

You’re missing a lot of the details explained in the article: this isn’t
something like a predictable 2% tax but something which fails significantly at
unknown intervals when a bad storm hits, or when infrastructure is overwhelmed
and goes from functional to unusable all at once. That leads to highly
correlated failures on a large scale: everyone in your zip code can’t get
insurance, the entire city needs key infrastructure replaced at the same time,
etc. and those also affect the desirability of the area and its ability to
attract businesses, tourism, etc. That’s a recipe for volatility and in many
cases the potential savings on property values are going to be significantly
canceled by higher taxes to pay for all of that infrastructure and increased
maintenance costs.

~~~
nabla9
I don't see how not enumerating details that reduce property values (like
repair and maintenance cost and cost of insurance) changes anything I said.

Investing includes risk management. You can discount the abrupt disruptions
into the price. Everything you say reduces the value of the property.
Eventually large areas will be abandoned but until that happens people can
live there.

~~~
acdha
The distinction is that this is widespread new risk without accurate actuarial
data. Someone looking at buying a house today doesn’t just have to wonder
whether the value will be zero in 50 years but whether it might be 30% the
next time a big storm causes enough damage that people don’t just rebuild,
which could happen much sooner than that. Once there’s an event which makes it
hard to get insurance, mortgages, or utilities the values can drop very
quickly and you won’t have much advanced notice.

~~~
nabla9
That's probably how the end comes. So much damage that it's not worth
rebuilding even cheaper and temporary.

But as I said, until that happens people will live, property values will
decrease and stuff that is rebuild will be build cheaper.

What will most likely happen first is "climate centrification" within Miami.
Poor people in high elevations will be move out when land value increases. Low
elevation areas become new low income neighborhoods.

~~~
acdha
That’s a big change from your earlier “What happens 50 years from now should
matter relatively little for people living there now”. People need to plan now
for those big disruptions because they’re either going to live long enough to
be directly affected, because any buyer will be taking that into account, or
both. Miami won’t go to zero overnight but everyone should assume that the
next 50 years will be quite different from the past 50.

~~~
nabla9
That's not a change from my earlier.

People who rent or live in cheap property just move and other people come in.
Property values change gentrification happens but that's usual for a big city.

If you move to Miami now and have children, you can raise them in next 20
years and move elsewhere in next 30 years.

~~~
acdha
… as long as you don’t mind losing money on a house, living somewhere the
landlord invests nothing in, dealing with accelerated infrastructure collapse
and paying higher taxes for reduced public services as all of the mitigation
costs tank budgets everywhere. A city with a declining tax base is not
business as usual.

------
doe88
Related, a very good episode of the _New Yorker Radio Hour_ podcast on the
subject of climate and real-estate in Florida.

[https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-new-yorker-radio-
hour/...](https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-new-yorker-radio-hour/the-
financial-crash-and-the-climate-crisis)

------
temdbej
I just went to Miami for the first time. I loved Miami Beach. Also surprised
by how relatively inexpensive real estate was.

~~~
vonmoltke
> Also surprised by how relatively inexpensive real estate was.

Compared to what? South Florida real estate is pretty expensive, compared to
the rest of the US.

~~~
opportune
Most of Miami outside of the immediate vicinity of downtown Miami and Miami
beach is pretty affordable as far as coastal cities go, especially compared to
ones with Miami-caliber weather.

Not sure what the climate change situations are, but there are condos in an
amazing location (Brickell Key) which go for like $300-400k for a 2bed.

------
sdca
California real estate agents minimize erosion, earthquakes, fires, zombies
and so on...

------
anonu
I don't doubt the sea level is rising and that Miami will be inundated. But I
think there's too much money and development put into that city so people
won't just give up and leave in 30 years. Instead I think there will be
increased investment in technology and infrastructure to keep the waters at
bay. It might become something more akin to Venice or Amsterdam.

------
MagicPropmaker
This article may have been better if she didn't spend so much time mocking
people's lifestyles and tastes.

------
chadash
Tl;dr: The author went to Miami and spoke to real estate agents, whose job it
is to sell property, whether they thought climate change is going to make real
estate a bad purchase. Surprisingly, the real estate agents, whose livelihood
depends on selling homes, minimized the dangers of global warming.

------
sytelus
Is it possible that people just keep filling the sea to keep the land? Sure
rebuilding will be needed, but tearing apart 50 year old buildings shouldn't
be too controversial. It looks like they already raising the roads and
installing pumping stations. If this happens than it would take much more than
6 feet of sea level rise to fear from climate change.

------
stuart78
This article would be so much better if the author did not keep pausing to
editorialize and interpret the opinions and perspective of her subjects. Trust
the reader to draw their own conclusions. This style of writing insults our
intelligence. All the worse because the approach and topic are quite good.

~~~
brendanmc6
This is one of the few things that annoys me about HN, this exact comment is
almost always here if the article makes any attempt at creative writing or
storytelling. Insulting? Give me a break.

Writing is an art not a science. Good writing should convey emotion. That's
not an easy thing to do. That's why I loved this piece. It captured many of my
own feelings, feelings I hadn't found a way to communicate even though I've
been involved in sustainability for some years now. I associated the
characters with people I know in my personal life, I related to the author,
and I learned a few things too.

This paragraph is probably my favorite:

> "We work, and at the end of the day, if we think at all, all we have time to
> think about is that we are cowards, or, before the thought comes, to escape
> it. Raise your hand if you have never hoped you will die before you have to
> thoroughly disrupt your own life for the lives of those who will live after
> you are dead. I do not mean to yell at anyone. Every day, I ask myself, what
> are you willing to do? And sometimes I feel righteous and strong, but mostly
> what I feel is fear, and a drive towards self preservation. I can laugh at
> the prettily arranged soap, or the privately-viewed sunsets, or the Jet
> Skis, because those are not my drugs..."

------
euroclydon
Does the author know the difference between east and west? Seems a pretty
important fact that she mangled in an attempt to disparage the real estate
agent, but she’s the one who gets it wrong.

~~~
thoman23
There are no instances where she got it wrong. She mentions being west of
Miami Beach and east of Miami, both of which are correct.

