Speaker
Description
Increasing climate impacts motivate migration across the globe (United Nations Network on Migration 2024). Although climate-induced migration is projected to impact US communities, literature on the numbers, locational choices of the movers, and implications for receiving communities is scarce. This study, focuses on recent population mobility towards rural areas in Northeast (NE) Region in the United States and explores whether climate-induced migration is evident in rural NE. Based on the recent population mobility in the area, this research also uncovers what infrastructure-related and socioeconomic outcomes can be expected in receiving communities, if climate-induced migration pushes populations towards rural (inland) Northeast, as suggested by projections(see for example Robinson et al. 2020). It presents on-the-ground data derived from focus group participants (n=27)—local housing experts in hotspots, i.e., 22 rural counties of NE which experienced the highest relative numbers of in-movers between 2016-2020. The findings of this study revealed that movements were mainly driven by socioeconomic and technological changes, catalyzed by COVID-19 that pushed urbanites towards rural areas. Although communities received a limited number of newcomers from climate-impacted areas, climate was not a major motivation for movers. The influx created significant challenges for housing market, physical and social infrastructure, and socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. COVID experience opened a window of opportunity to prepare communities for just and sustainable outcomes of future mobilities driven by hazards of many kinds. It highlighted the need to understand uncertainties—e.g., timing and amount of climate migration, by focusing on the longer horizon. Receiving communities can achieve desirable outcomes if they integrate climate migration into their plans and address existing challenges to attainable/affordable housing supply, while also enhancing climate resilience, and the integration of newcomers into host communities.
References
Robinson, C., Dilkina, B. and Moreno-Cruz, J., 2020. Modeling migration patterns in the USA under sea level rise. Plos one, 15(1), p.e0227436.
United Nations Network of Migration (2024) Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and
Regular Migration. Report of the Secretary-General (Advance Unedited Report). retrieved from: https://migrationnetwork.un.org/sites/g/files/tmzbdl416/files/sg-report-2024/SG_Report_GCMpdf.pdf (Accessed on 12/30/2024).
| Keywords | Climate migration; COVID; rural communities; receiving communities; Northeast |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | No |
