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Every time a big rainstorm hits New York City, my thoughts turn to my neighbors in basement apartments. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has estimated that thousands of these subterranean rentals are at serious risk of flooding. And when basement apartments fill, the danger can turn deadly fast.
It’s an excruciating reality: For many New Yorkers, these “death traps,” as they’ve been called, are the only place they can afford to live. It’s a microcosm of a larger problem.
Again and again across the country, the cheapest housing is often in the most dangerous places – the ones most exposed to floods, fires and storms made worse by climate change. I think of a friend who moved her family from California to Texas in search of affordability, only to be hit by one disaster after another. She’s one of thousands of Californians seeking lower prices in Texas — a phenomenon that Ivis Garcia, a Texas-based expert in urban planning, is very familiar with.
When Americans move across states, they often find themselves in places with worse climate risk. Looking at nationwide trends, Garcia maps the crossroads where real estate, migration, climate change, insurance breakdowns and policy failures meet. The result is an impossible bargain for millions of Americans: Pay more to live somewhere safer, or pay less and gamble with disaster.
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