POSTED INOPINION CONTRIBUTOR
Maine is the new Florida for climate migrants
by Bloomberg
5 hours ago
Conor Sen is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is the founder of Peachtree Creek Investments.
Millions of Americans have moved to the Southeast over the past few years, bringing immense wealth and transforming real estate markets in places like the suburbs of Dallas and Atlanta. This Sun Belt migration has created a longer-term opportunity in parts of the north as well. It’s long been common for well-off residents of the Northeast and Midwest to vacation in warmer places such as Florida and Arizona during the winter. Thanks to growing wealth in the Sun Belt and the increasingly oppressive hot summers of the South, it’s going to get more attractive for southern residents to trek up north to escape the heat.
There’s something intuitively obvious about this reverse snowbird migration. Look at the headlines. Phoenix is approaching its record for the number of consecutive days spent over 110 degrees. Florida is setting records of its own, raising the temperature of the water surrounding the state to alarming levels. As an Atlanta resident, I can attest that July and August are not the most pleasant times of the year to live here. Even if you’re not a fatalist about climate change, already hot summers and at least more modest warming to come will act as a tailwind for southerners looking to beat the heat.
The nature of the migration and wealth shift we’ve seen over the past few years makes the case even stronger. Someone moving from New York to Florida or Wisconsin to Arizona is likely familiar with the summer vacation communities that people in New York and Wisconsin spend time in. There’s a good chance they still have friends and family back home they’d like to keep in touch with. And it makes more sense to travel back in July rather than January.
https://www.bangordailynews.com/2023/07/18/opinion/opinion-contributor/maine-is-the-new-florida-for-climate-migrants/
