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Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

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Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#81

Post by siglesias »

dv_dt wrote: post #32
creaghpatr wrote: post #15

Interestingly, the Miami housing market outlook for 2019 is excellent, in spite of this news. https://gordcollins.com/real-estate/miami-real-estate-foreca... It would appear that people who actually have skin in the game believe otherwise.

Markets are great for short term simple extrapolative prediction. At long term and/or non-continuous prediction they seem to have had significant failures.

Citation? There seem to be cases in high technology where the market is very patient for long term returns. Case in point: AMZN trades at a 320 P/E because the market (thus far correctly) can’t see a plausible scenario in which it cedes any e-commerce or AWS share.

Maybe this is optimism bias writ large? Another possibility is that even if there is robust demand despite certain destruction, these houses are really worth many millions for the short term (for cachet, status, etc.). Here we model them as really expensive vacations.

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#83

Post by beat »

craftyguy wrote: post #36
jdpedrie wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They would get some government assistence with the condition that this was the first and only time that the governmnet would help. We'll see how well that holds up next time those people need assistance. Somehow I don't see any elected politician telling his voters "sorry, we already helped you".

That's a common problem with any elected government. Tough decisions like "we need everyone here to move away right now" never get made because doing so would result in some elected politician not winning re-election.

Not necessarily. My mother lived briefly in Shawneetown, IL, on the Ohio River (before I was born). After a particularly bad flood, the locals just packed the whole town up and moved a couple of miles inland to higher ground. I took her down to visit once, and she was totally weirded out. The house she lived in still stood there, abandoned.

People move away when a location is no longer economically viable, period. They won't move away until then, despite the risks. If they did, no one would live in volcano or earthquake zones. Think San Francisco Bay is going to be depopulated just because it's a dangerous place to live?

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#84

Post by will_brown »

chollida1 wrote: post #9

Start worrying when the banks stop offering mortgages to people trying to buy property in south beach. I remember when Katrina flooded New Orleans, lots of people were asking why rebuild the city when it almost certainly will flood like that again. And the answer was a simple, do you know how much it would cost to relocate everyone? What does it do to the economy when almost everyones largest asset(their house) is wo…

I live in South Beach.

Private flood insurance has pulled out of the market after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and it’s not just South Beach it’s a majority of Miami-Dade County.

On the beach it has gotten to a point where some commercial properties can’t get insured...that will be an inevitable disaster.

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#85

Post by frequent »

Always reminds me of Roisin Murphy "Dear Miami" (1997)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbX7ASDLwAk

"Behind these walls You can be so self-absorbed Behind those eyes, no disguise Disguise, no you can't disguise

Behind this fortress of an address Stuck in the passion void With a little style full and for a while But you can't turn back time

Dear Miami, you're the first to go Disappearing under melting snow Each and everyone turn your critical eye On the burning sun and try not to cry

..."

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#86

Post by clarkmoody »

scottlamb wrote: post #76
chollida1 wrote: post #9

Start worrying when the banks stop offering mortgages to people trying to buy property in south beach. I remember when Katrina flooded New Orleans, lots of people were asking why rebuild the city when it almost certainly will flood like that again. And the answer was a simple, do you know how much it would cost to relocate everyone? What does it do to the economy when almost everyones largest asset(their house) is wo…

> Start worrying when the banks stop offering mortgages to people trying to buy property in south beach. If the 2007 financial crisis taught me anything, it's that we can't rely on the banks to make sound financial decisions, particularly regarding mortgages. Even more so now that the government bailed them out at taxpayer expense. They know that will happen again when needed. They have a safety net so they can gambl…

The 2007/8 bailout of banks is far from the first time the US government has socialized losses in the sector.

The modern era of Wall Street bailouts started in the '80s after the Mexican Peso crisis.

Bank bailouts have been happening since Colonial times, through emergency suspensions of specie payment, par laws, legal tender laws, etc.

> we can't rely on the banks to make sound financial decisions

Banks that have an implicit (or explicit) guarantee of bailout are making rational decisions about risk, since they can offload it on the taxpayer.

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#87

Post by craftyguy »

beat wrote: post #83
craftyguy wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a common problem with any elected government. Tough decisions like "we need everyone here to move away right now" never get made because doing so would result in some elected politician not winning re-election.

Not necessarily. My mother lived briefly in Shawneetown, IL, on the Ohio River (before I was born). After a particularly bad flood, the locals just packed the whole town up and moved a couple of miles inland to higher ground. I took her down to visit once, and she was totally weirded out. The house she lived in still stood there, abandoned. People move away when a location is no longer economically viable, period. Th…

That's not my point. Obviously people will move away on their own accord if living in a location is no longer safe/viable.

My point is, until a location is no longer safe, they will generally stay put and resist any pressure to leave, even if all evidence points to it becoming unsafe in the not so distant future. Elected officials live in the moment, and will not make decisions that impact constituents today in preparation for a future disaster.

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#88

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

siglesias wrote: post #81
dv_dt wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Markets are great for short term simple extrapolative prediction. At long term and/or non-continuous prediction they seem to have had significant failures.

Citation? There seem to be cases in high technology where the market is very patient for long term returns. Case in point: AMZN trades at a 320 P/E because the market (thus far correctly) can’t see a plausible scenario in which it cedes any e-commerce or AWS share. Maybe this is optimism bias writ large? Another possibility is that even if there is robust demand despite certain destruction, these houses are really wo…

Ten years is not the long term.

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#89

Post by laverick »

fabricexpert wrote: post #80

This article is kind of infuriating. Just bring the facts up and talk about them, instead of describing people. I think this is one of the more critical parts (along with the stuff about water supply getting contaminated): > Barring a stupendous reversal in greenhouse gas emissions, the rising Atlantic will cover much of Miami by the end of this century. The economic effects will be devastating: Zillow Inc. estimates…

Isn't Zillow ignoring the immense value created from all those new beachfront properties?

Re: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon. Its Drinking Water Could Go First

#90

Post by nradov »

ryandrake wrote: post #5
ben509 wrote: post #2

Part of the problem here is exacerbated by all the flood insurance that effectively subsidizes building in flood plains. In addition to long term measures to mitigate climate change, we should have a tax on areas that are threatened by flooding and water levels rising so that we can reduce the immediate issues by incentivizing people to move away from them.

Should we also tax people living in earthquake-prone and tornado-prone areas? How about blizzard-prone areas? Keep going with this and we will run out of places (in the USA) where it’s ok to live. Also, as someone who lived in south Florida, flood insurance is a joke and unavailable near the coast anyway. Nobody expects it to pay out enough in a major catastrophe, including hurricanes and flooding.

Yes homeowners should bear the full cost of their choices. It's entirely possible to build a modern house strong enough to survive earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes with only minor damage. Flooding is more difficult to design around.
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