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Georgism and the Coming Climate Diaspora (Part II of II)

Today is Monday, January 13th.  This morning’s news cycle announced that the death toll in the Los Angeles fires continues to climb, and while some are now contained, strong winds through Wednesday threaten to make the remaining blazes even more dangerous. 

The ultimate magnitude of the still unfolding tragedy is unknown.  And although we cannot assign a dollar figure to the immense human suffering the fires have wrought, they are already estimated to be among the most expensive disasters in U.S. history as measured by property damages.  Public agencies and public dollars will strain to support the recovery efforts.  And those events will doubtless further hasten the reshaping of the private insurance industry..

Once extinguished, the LA fires will be dutyfly recorded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in its list of “billion dollar weather and climate disasters.” The trend in these data is clear to the naked eye: annual counts are increasing, and with alarming speed.  

Not this time (and probably not the next or the next), but at some point, likely out of sheer economic necessity, we will begin the painful, unprecedented societal pivot from disaster recovery in place to mass relocations.  What this will look like remains to be seen. But recognizing this eventuality, the hope is that we can orchestrate the process (probably more like many, many processes) civilly, and achieve outcomes that provide lasting safety and security for many Americans.

An element of relocation will be physical, of course.  And urban planners, engineers, and architects have begun contemplating the new settlement patterns that will characterize climate migrations’ receiving communities.  Already in the crosshairs of housing activists, the single family home will be rendered a thing of the past as dwellings become smaller, multi-family, and better able to withstand extreme weather.  LEED certification will probably seem like a quaint idea compared to the environmentally-conscious designs of buildings to come.  And public infrastructure will be reimagined and hardened.  

Of course, our policies must evolve, too.  Thought leaders are already grappling with what just public policies might look like in America’s receiving communities.  And this, I believe, is where Henry George comes in.  His ideas, anyway, or an extrapolation thereof.  

First, a quick orientation for anyone who doesn’t know George.  A 19th century social reformer, his seminal work Progress and Poverty outsold the bible in its heyday.  What did so many people find so compelling in George’s ideas?  Simply put, it was the notion that the equitable use of natural resources and land were the keys to societal flourishing, and that public policies should prevent the privileged few from capturing the value of these resources for their own private gain. 

These ideas have been implemented with astonishing success in some foreign contexts, including in Norway, where policies governing the ownership and use of natural resources have contributed to the country’s enviable rankings in quality of life and social purpose.  Outside of a handful of adoptions of Land Value Tax in Pennsylvania, however, George’s vision has seldom carried the day in the U.S., likely because it is too at odds with America’s ideal of rugged individualism and our winner-take-all mentality.

But in a changed and changing climate we must be willing to adopt new perspectives and, I would argue, one that centers collective wellbeing and equity seems particularly apt.  Surely our all-too-familiar policy preferences – including private property, home rule, and the corporate ownership of land and housing – will not serve us well as we seek to rapidly reimagine where and how we live.  (These are, after all, the very policies and practices that have brought about the current affordable housing crisis and produced our carbon-intensive, racially and economically segregated communities.)  

So, what policies might George recommend to receiving communities of the future?  To truly do this question justice we would need to engage in a series of structured policy discussions involving numerous individuals with varied professional and lived experiences, an effort the Progress and Poverty Institute will engage in throughout 2025 and beyond.  With this work still to be done, however, I can offer a few initial thoughts, including:

Land Value Taxation (LVT): By taxing land at a higher rate than improvements, an LVT helps drive land prices down, discourages land speculation, and encourages land to be put to its “highest and best use,” as articulated in zoning ordinances.  Adoption of Land Value Taxes in receiving communities will help to ensure their readiness to welcome new residents and businesses and provide a stable and progressive source of public revenue to fund ongoing and novel public expenditures, effectively setting the stage for economic equity and efficient land use.

High Density, Mixed Use Zoning: Low density and Exclusionary zoning are already in many policymakers’ crosshairs, but the process of removing  minimum lot sizes and square footages, setbacks, and parking requirements is a laborious, location-by-location effort.  And making positive gains in terms of allowing the construction of multi-family homes, mixed use developments, and taller buildings can elicit an all-too-familiar NIMBY response from existing residents.  In the context of receiving communities, however, embracing high density, mixed use zoning will be critical to success, and if an LVT is implemented before such upzoning is enacted, it will go a long way toward capturing the resulting financial uplift (which embeds in land values) for public use.

Community Land Trusts (CLTs): CLTs, which combine private ownership of buildings with communal ownership of land, are already flourishing in a variety of contexts across the U.S. and hold immense promise as instruments of community relocation.  Offering benefits including permanent affordability, collective governance, and (usually) physical proximity, CLTs have obvious applicability in receiving communities, particularly those to which indigenous, and other culturally distinct populations will move.

Regional Collaboration: Climate projections are a helpful foundation on which to think about future U.S. settlement patterns, but they are far from definitive.  We cannot know with certainty the specifics of disasters yet to come, and we cannot expect that our continuing march to a fundamentally altered future climate will be a linear one.  For these reasons, it will be imperative that receiving communities relinquish the rigid political and governance boundaries they have today and replace them with permeable, regional definitions of place, able to accommodate what will likely be continuing population shifts as our natural environment continues to change.  

The fires in Los Angeles are a profound tragedy.  They are also an indicator of things to come and a (very unwelcome) invitation to think seriously about impending climate migrations and the policies needed to ensure the equitable functioning of receiving communities.  

The movement of millions of people away from unsafe locales will be an immense and immensely complex effort, involving countless subject matter experts, elected officials, and affected individuals.  The silver lining (if we really, really look for one) is that this process will create opportunities to build more equitable and sustainable communities in safer locations.  Henry George’s ideas offer insights into the kinds of policies we’ll need to realize such a future.