Florida economy shows vulnerability
Ever-growing state could struggle as flooding worsens
WASHINGTON - Florida’s economy has long thrived on one import above all: people.
Until Irma struck this month, the state was adding nearly 1,000 residents a day — 333,471 in the past year, akin to absorbing a city the size of St. Louis or Pittsburgh. Every job-seeker, retiree or new birth, along with billions spent by tourists, helped fuel Florida’s propulsive growth and economic gains.
Yet Hurricane Irma’s destructive floodwaters renewed fears about how to manage the state’s population boom as the risks of climate change intensify. Rising sea levels and spreading flood plains have magnified the vulnerabilities for the legions of people who continue to move to Florida and the state economy they have sustained.
Florida faces an urgent need to adapt to the environmental changes, said Jesse Keenan, a lecturer at Harvard University who researches the effects of rising sea levels on cities.
“A lot is going to change in the next 30 years — this is just the beginning,” he said.
People might need to live farther inland, Keenan said, and employers might have to relocate to higher ground, with the resulting competition between offices and housing driving up land prices. It would become harder to adequately insure houses built along canals. Traffic delays could worsen across parts of Florida as more roads flood. Developers might shift away from sprawling suburban tracts toward denser urban pockets that are better equipped to manage floods.