Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Heaven or High Water – Selling Miami's Last 50 Years

popula.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 154 posts

Re: Heaven or High Water – Selling Miami's Last 50 Years

#31

Post by 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.

Re: Heaven or High Water – Selling Miami's Last 50 Years

#32

Post by yostrovs »

mcculley wrote: post #31

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.…

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?

Re: Heaven or High Water – Selling Miami's Last 50 Years

#33

Post by thoman23 »

euroclydon wrote: post #16

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.

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.

Re: Heaven or High Water – Selling Miami's Last 50 Years

#34

Post by lotsofpulp »

paulgb wrote: post #29
vuln wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment adds nothing to the discussion.

Do you think it's incorrect? It's hard for me to imagine that a good portion of the burden of this won't land on Florida and US taxpayers, in addition to whoever is holding the hot potato when the problem becomes impossible to ignore.

Florida's status as a swing state in Presidential elections means that both political parties will bail it out no matter what. The whole nation already bails out Florida via the National Flood Insurance Program, since no entity other than the federal government could possibly insure such a high frequency high risk event.

Another taxpayer casualty of the electoral college system.

Re: Heaven or High Water – Selling Miami's Last 50 Years

#35

Post by nabla9 »

Amygaz wrote: post #25
nabla9 wrote: post #11

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.

Except that it will cost a lot more to build, insure and maintain. That being said, I wouldn’t be surprised if people with too much money start buying just to have bragging rights on a magnificent view of the sea level rise.

> Except that it will cost a lot more to build, insure and maintain.

Those are not counterarguments. Increasing running costs directly decrease property values. The property value vs. replacement property value will adjust.

Consider normal case whre property price is $1M, upkeep an maintenance etc. cost is $10k per year and investor gets $70k in rent.

Now change it to property price being $100k, yearly cost $30k per year and investor gets $60k in rent.

Witch one has better ROI?

Re: Heaven or High Water – Selling Miami's Last 50 Years

#36

Post by barry-cotter »

EliRivers wrote: post #26
barry-cotter wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

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.

Re: Heaven or High Water – Selling Miami's Last 50 Years

#37

Post by acdha »

nabla9 wrote: post #23
acdha wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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.

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.

Re: Heaven or High Water – Selling Miami's Last 50 Years

#38

Post by philjohn »

synctext wrote: post #4

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 flood…

The Dam the Delta project was very impressive, and having seen it up close doubly so.

Am I right in thinking that some areas have now been designated as "we'll flood those to protect other areas, because the cost of compensation is less than the cost of adding ever more complex defences"? I recall hearing that somewhere.

Re: Heaven or High Water – Selling Miami's Last 50 Years

#39

Post by nabla9 »

acdha wrote: post #37
nabla9 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 u…

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.

Re: Heaven or High Water – Selling Miami's Last 50 Years

#40

Post by stevekemp2 »

nabla9 wrote: post #11

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.

Like all the people flooding to live in Baltimore, now property is so cheap?

Sadly the idea that price alone affects desirability is a little niave.

Post reply on HN