[ardecila]

^ Maybe coastal cities will build their way out of flooding with levees and dikes, but I don't see property owners getting over their own selfishness in those places.

Just recently, I was reading that Miami can't agree on a floodwall because people are too worried about their property values, but you know what really kills your property values? Catastrophic floods happening regularly. I think for a lot of these coastal areas, people are gonna have to find out the hard way when the big one comes, before agreeing to an ugly levee cutting their neighborhood off from the water. There's a similar dynamic out West with wildfires. In both cases the obstacle is rich people who bought their dream home in a vulnerable place and will fight like hell to make sure they don't have to deal with the consequences of their choices (levees, forced relocation, higher flood insurance premiums, etc).

Of course, when the big one comes a lot of people get displaced, and many end up relocating permanently. Will they come to Chicago? Doubtful. It's about as far from the coasts as you can get, and doesn't have a reputation for affordable living or job creation. I assume most of the relocations will be to inland Southern and Western cities that are already seeing growth - Nashville, Austin, Charlotte, SLC, Denver, Boise, etc.