Friendship in a warming world: Building cities and communities to survive in a changing climate

Oct 13

When I wrote the Hypermobility section of We Should Get Together, I chronicled how the two primary modes of constant movement can hinder people from making and keeping their friends. Those two big culprits are commuting and relocation—and the relocation is typically for job opportunities, cheaper housing, living closer to loved ones, or living in more desirable areas.

You might think that commuting matters less these days because of the boom in remote and hybrid work opportunities. Tell that to the Super Commuters like Brian Ponte, who commutes from Connecticut to New York. The last couple of years have seen a spike in the number of Super Commuters—people who have longer commutes than before Covid—because they moved farther from their workplace during 2020-2023. And believe it or not, around half of American adults (100 million workers) are either back to regular commuting or they never stopped because they have a job that can’t be done remotely.

But I’m here today to talk less about commuting and more about moving, and the reason why, over the coming years, we’re going to see a spike in a new reason why people move away, consequently leaving friends and community behind — climate migration. Between 2025 and 2055, “up to 150 million people are projected to relocate due to natural or social hazards accelerated by climate change.”

Between 2025 and 2055, up to 150 million people are projected to relocate due to natural or social hazards accelerated by climate change.

Ironically, over the last 20 years, as climate disasters like fires, floods, and hurricanes have increased in the US, people have been moving in droves into the cities and metro areas most likely to be either on fire or under water.

As a species, it seems we are addicted to FAFO.

We also don’t like to freeze our asses off in the winter, so we flock to the cities around the east, west, and southern perimeter of the United States.

And, as noted above, people have been moving into the path of harm’s way because that’s where there are job opportunities, cheaper housing, loved ones, or more desirable cities. Unfortunately, those treasures often overlap with places that have a higher likelihood of climate disaster.

The Venn diagram between Places We Want to Live & Places Most Likely to Be Wrecked By Human-caused Climate Disasters looks a little too much like a single circle.

One thing I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is how much more important it will be in the coming years for us to:

Create cities that people want to live in, in locales that people aren’t currently flocking to…
and… make sure that as those cities are created, they’re greener, more sustainable, more climate-conscious, and more likely to be spared by (or survive after) future climate disasters
and… make sure that those cities are also places that make it easier for people to form the friendships and community bonds that foster every kind of health we need: environmental, physical, social, mental, emotional, spiritual, relational, financial, intellectual, and vocational.

Filthy rich apocalypse planning

The richest 1% of the planet are already building their private luxury underground bunkers to ride out future catastrophes. Zuck’s 5,000-square-foot underground compound, set beneath his sprawling private colony of mansions on Kauai, is stocked with food, water, energy sources—aaaand it’s shrouded in secrecy, wrongful death allegations, lawsuits, and mystery.

(Side note: Naomi Alderman’s book The Future is a wild page-turning story about how these kind of secret bunkers work out (or not!?) for the world’s richest people who plan to ride out the apocalypse sequestered inside them. 10 stars.)

What about the rest of us?

Venn diagram of places where people want to live and work and can build community, overlapping with places less likely to be devastated by climate disasters

Survival zones shouldn’t, and can’t, be places that only the richest 1% of people have access to.

We need to turn our attention, our investments, and the best minds of our generation to the important task of creating:

• Places people want to live and work where they can also build community

• Places that are less likely to get completely annihilated by coming climate disasters

Building to survive the future, together!

Let’s start by learning from the places and communities already building cities, coalitions, and projects to survive climate change together. Here are a few examples, shared in no particular order:

Example 1: Duluth MN

While no place is literally “climate proof”, around 2019, Duluth Minnesota adopted the slogan “Climate-proof Duluth” to highlight the attributes that make their city more likely to survive future climate disasters.

One huge reason is that there’s abundant freshwater nearby in Lake Superior; it’s the world’s largest freshwater lake by surface area, andit holds 10% of earth’s freshwater. And despite those abysmally blizzardous winters that humans tend not to love (Duluth gets 80+ inches of snow every winter), our warming planet will eventually create a balmier Duluth climate in the future. Soooo…🙃?

Learn more about climate-proof Duluth in the earnest PBS video (3 min) and a jokey Daily Show (6 min) video below.

Example 2: Nordic Urban Living Lab / Nordic Smart City Network

In the Nordic region, five countries, five capitals, and twenty cities joined the Smart City Network: a big collaboration with a big goal: create healthy, sustainable urban environments that people want to live in, and that improve the quality of life for everyone, and that champion Nordic values.

It’s worth noting that they specifically mention that “this is possible due to solid democratic societies that have high social trust, advanced digitalization, high degree of happiness amongst our citizens and great welfare and growth” … so yes, your more likely to create this near you if you elect leaders who share these priorities. (a.k.a. go fucking vote for leaders who will prioritize the same things for you!!!)

Example 3: Seattle WA

Seattle’s leadership is focusing on expanding green building practices and reducing carbon emissions. Their Seattle 2030 District project aims to maximize energy efficiency in existing downtown buildings and to ensure that new buildings are also made in a more sustainable way. Seattle is also working towards being carbon neutral by 2050, by improving public transportation, walkable neighborhoods, and making sure that green spaces are woven into urban design.

Example 4: Pearl Homes, Florida

As much as I’m not a fan of single-family zoning and houses that cost more than a million dollars, I’m impressed by how the Pearl Homes community in Cortez, FL, was built with climate survival in mind.

The community was built to be “net-zero,” meaning the homes produce more energy than they consume, thanks to the entire community using solar panels. They’ve got concrete walls, foam insulation, buried power and internet lines, and the living spaces are 16 feet above sea level. The streets and first-floor garages are designed to carry excess water away in the event of flooding, rainstorms, or storm surges.

The Pearl Homes community suffered little to no damage from Hurricanes Helene and Milton, and the community never lost power. Every new home or apartment community in Florida should be built with the same kinds of priorities and considerations. The governor of Florida should be requiring that all new homes and communities be built this way. With enough courage, commitment, and investment, it can be done… but he’s too busy obsessively banning books that have gay characters in them. (I said it before and I’ll say it again: Vote!)

Example 5: Moving Together

The Moving Together exhibit at the Biennale Architecture 2021 provided three case studies — located in Puerto Rico, Tajikistan, and within an Indigenous community in Louisiana— showing how communities have moved together in deliberate, planned, resettlement programs in response to climate change.

Example 6: Queer and disabled communities basically everywhere

This article by Vanessa Raditz and Patty Berne breaks down how queer and disabled folks are basically pros at surviving crises—because let’s be real, we’ve been doing it forever. (We’re also great at creating chosen family.)

Queer and disabled communities are experts at adapting to challenging situations, sharing resources, and building strong networks (we literally have to do this just to exist)—so figuring out how to survive climate chaos is just another damn stop on the struggle bus. If you have a chance to learn from the queer community and disabled community, or to support our projects and lift up our voices, please do it.

Example 7: Stay where you are and build a stronger community

It’s a well-known fact that people who have a lot of local friends (and friendly neighbor relationships!) are more likely to survive crises like heat waves, hurricanes, floods, power outages, and earthquakes. From New Orleans post-Katrina to Japan post-Fukushima tsunami, neighbors have been a major reason why thousands of people were able to cope and survive.

If you’re too afraid to reach out to get to know the people around you, and you’re too afraid to respond in a warm and friendly way when your neighbors try to get to know you—you’re gonna have to get over that, boo. You never know when the next-door stranger you’ve been ignoring will become the person you rely on in a sudden emergency situation.

What’s your Community & Climate Survival plan?

Climate change is already here. Recent monsterstorms like Hurricanes Helene and Milton, only two weeks apart, and Milton intensifying with a speed and ferocity that’s never been observed before by modern meteorological science—are asking us to wake TF up and pay attention.

Climate migration will soon become another reason why our friends move away, and another reason why we need to stick together and build stronger communities with the people around us.

Discussion prompts for you, your friends, and your community:

What do you think about all of this?
How do you expect climate change will affect your access to friendship and community?
Why do you live where you do today?
Is it more of a priority for you to stay where you are or move in the future?
How will climate change, sustainability, economics, friendship, community, and relationships play a role in where you choose to move or settle down in the future?

I believe that all people, of all demographic and socioeconomic levels, deserve to live in places where they can thrive, in healthy, strongly-bonded communities. This is the kind of human-and-planet-centered design thinking, urban planning, and green planning that our cities need NOW, and that our people will need even more in the future.

We should get together… and help create a greener, safer, healthier, more connected version of our world. Before it’s too late.

p.s. If you’re working on a project like this, tell me about it?!

Warmly,
Kat Vellos
Author of We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships