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

Why Are Developers Still Pouring Billions into Waterlogged Miami?

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 113 posts

Re: Why Are Developers Still Pouring Billions into Waterlogged Miami?

#61

Post by pixl97 »

johan_larson wrote: post #22
cityandtech wrote: post #14

It will probably take a single expensive disaster to change behaviours.

That's my bet. Some time in the coming fifty years we will lose the first city to rising water. There will be attempts at mitigation, but they will fail either for lack of money or know-how. And after that we will think differently about this problem. It could be Miami. It's certainly low-lying enough, and big enough to count. But it's also in the United States, which has a lot of money to throw at problems. Some cit…

> Some time in the coming fifty years we will lose the first city to rising water.

We've lost cities in the past due to hurricanes (which I count as a type of rising water).

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi865.htm

Galveston would have disappeared decades ago, until they lifted it and built a seawall. We throw a lot of money at the problem of the ocean. The issue is, sea level rise or not, the ocean will always win unless a constant stream of money is continually pumped into defense.

TL;DR don't live near the ocean.

Re: Why Are Developers Still Pouring Billions into Waterlogged Miami?

#62

Post by __derek__ »

xapata wrote: post #37

Investors assume that Miami is too big to fail. The government bailed out (most of) the financial firms in 2008. Bailing out (figuratively and literally) flooding cities will be a popular plan when the time comes. Just as with the housing collapse, the question will be whether the government bailout will successfully resolve the crisis.

Exactly. The answer is moral hazard. As long as it's possible to keep Miami dry, post-Katrina New Orleans basically guarantees that Miami and similar will see a massive influx of money to rebuild. Once these properties are physically/financially underwater, the corporate bailouts effectively guarantee that they'll be made whole-enough. Meanwhile, they get to make money off of the buildings.

Re: Why Are Developers Still Pouring Billions into Waterlogged Miami?

#63

Post by arafa »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #27
bubbleRefuge wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are so right. We've allways had water come in on high tides. The risk is hurricanes and storm surge, that is why flood insurance is so high on miami beach. (BTW its feels like hurricane frequency is in a downtrend) I just purchased a place on the intercoastal waterway in miami beach after selling my palce in west broward burbs. Flood insurance is around $2500 per year. Windstorm/Homeowners is $4500. Burbs was lik…

> The risk is hurricanes and storm surge, that is why flood insurance is so high on miami beach. This nails it. Miami Beach real estate values will decline as soon as insurance companies throw up their hands and refuse to insure the losses. Can't insure, can't finance a property.

Citizens Insurance is the insurance of last resort in FL and is paid by taxpayers to deal with this situation. You can always get it. The best you can hope for is the rates go up enough for Citizens Insurance to make these properties less valuable. Don't hold your breath though. Relevant link: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/consumer/fl-insurers-so...

Re: Why Are Developers Still Pouring Billions into Waterlogged Miami?

#65

Post by bpicolo »

tqkxzugoaupvwqr wrote: post #52
gniv wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe Miami will turn into a Venice-like romantic canal city, where travel will be done by jetski, tourism will flourish, and real estate prices will keep going up.

Isn’t Florida plagued by alligators? A Venice-like canal city and alligators make for an interesting mix.

Alligators are mostly just fresh water. They can sort of survive brackish / a bit of salt but they're not as versatile as crocs.

Re: Why Are Developers Still Pouring Billions into Waterlogged Miami?

#68

Post by maxerickson »

pixl97 wrote: post #59
maxerickson wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could go long on post sea level rise oceanfront properties. There's probably a few places where a narrow strip of land has enough of the right slope to be a win for quite a range of sea level increases.

And then some idiot will scam the taxpayers in to building a large seawall miles out from your location, leaving you high, dry, and broke.

cjlars already brought up a similar strategy with less sensitivity to sea level changes and less sensitivity to interventions.

Maybe the best climate change hedge is investing in low carbon power production. (incrementally) Good for the climate, benefits if things go worse than expected.

Re: Why Are Developers Still Pouring Billions into Waterlogged Miami?

#69

Post by Spellman »

Declanomous wrote: post #15
cjlars wrote: post #4

If you look at various financial crises throughout history, you'll see that even amid increasingly clear evidence of problems, the status quo is surprisingly sticky. Things move along as normal, and everything seems fine until suddenly... they don't. In hindsight things seem obvious, but at the time it's difficult to know if you are merely flirting with the edge, or you've actually gone over it. Miami real estate (an…

I live in a 130 year old house in Chicago. If you go in the basement, you can see the new foundation built on top of the old one when the house was raised, and how they added indoor plumbing at the same time. That being said, even though Chicago had high-rises at the time, buildings were all pretty much held in place by gravity at the time. Raising them was just a matter of having enough jackscrews to support the bui…

Live in Sacramento region where we also raised the buildings to reduce flooding issues.

Not quite as impressive as the Chicago effort, but proves that it could be done.

Re: Why Are Developers Still Pouring Billions into Waterlogged Miami?

#70

Post by dv_dt »

pixl97 wrote: post #57
dv_dt wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the occurrence of the conditions required for flooding are happening at increased probability driven by climate change, then one could reasonably attribute increased flooding to climate change. If only way to be sure is to wait for the data to show up 50-100 year baseline data for flooding, then by the time you act - all the costly infrastructure commitments have been made... it's another form of socializing the c…

Climate change isn't the only thing that increases the probability. Over the long term they may eventually be the largest cause, but currently I would cite many, many other issues. Sea walls, land use changes, water pumping, loss of wetlands all affect the severity of tides. All these things could be changed to avoid issues while completely ignoring climate change for now.... Yet they do nothing. Ocean bathymetry is…

Sure thing, all the other states you mention speak to the capacity of the shoreline to absorb some amount of water increase (from any source). Independently, if the frequency and intensity of flooding events is predicted to increase in the future, one would think that long term zoning regulations to preserve or increase the capacity of the shore to absorb flooding would be cheaper than, fix-it-quick with big infrastructure projects after catastrophic damage has already occured. That's why it's cheaper to address it now, rather than wait until the building policy completely breaks down.
Post reply on HN