Move Smart: Top 10 Cities for Climate-Savvy Peeps

Hot or Not? The Climate-Smart Cities You Need to Know About Now! In today's explosive episode, we're diving into the ultimate survival guide for the climate-conscious homebuyer. Discover the top cities that are beating the climate crisis, as ranked by Policy Genius. We're talking scorching heat, drenching humidity, city-swallowing floods, and nature's fury unleashed. But wait, there's more! We're also unpacking how these climate warriors impact your real estate investments and the future of homeownership. Tune in to find out if your city makes the cut in the era of climate change. This is the must-listen episode for everyone planning their next move in our rapidly changing world!

Useful Resources
Best & Worst Cities for Climate Change – Policygenius
More than 80% of home shoppers consider climate risks when looking for a new home
Climate Change and the Housing Market | Redfin
Columbus Underground
First-time homeownership surges: Half of all home buyers are making their first purchase

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Transcript

Shane (00:02.902)
Howdy ho. Welcome to another episode of Carbony Conversations. Shane and Chad here to bring you a new topic today. Hope.

Chadwick (00:04.681)
Howdy, howdy, howdy.

Chadwick (00:15.614)
Yeah, we're trying to think about where we should move and did some digging.

Shane (00:20.178)
Yeah, yep, yeah. 2024 is the beginning of the year. So it's a year of change for a lot of people. So maybe this will give someone out there listening some ideas. But before we dig into that, as always, we wanna remind all of our listeners and supporters out there that Carbonly Conversations is a podcast where friends examine the intersection of community, lifestyle and consumption in our lives.

Chadwick (00:29.854)
Mm-hmm.

Shane (00:50.45)
And we created this and hope to share our stories and curiosity to motivate actions to help us lower our carbon footprints and also create a platform for everyone out there listening and community members to share your carbonly journeys as well. We also wanna remind you that we've made it very easy for you to listen to us. Literally all you need to do is scroll down to the show notes.

click on find and join the conversation and that'll give you access to stay up to date on all of our new episodes which drop every Wednesday and that'll give you access. Any podcast platform you use, it should be on there.

Chadwick (01:36.054)
That's what we tried to do. So if you can't find us, reach out.

Shane (01:38.758)
Make it easy. Yep, or reach out to us on Instagram. And also we try to post some videos and highlight clips on TikTok. And then also you can check out if you're tired of just listening to us and wanna watch us during the conversations, go to YouTube, type in Carbly Conversations, and you can find the full video episode on there as well. But yeah.

Chadwick (02:07.822)
to see some of our dimples.

Shane (02:09.874)
See our dimples, our pretty faces. Our moms love it. So, yeah, I was just, you know, before we started, you know, I was telling Chad about an article that I found. I guess I can use this to give them a shout out. There's a local website called Columbus Underground that I live in Columbus, Ohio, if you don't know already. They highlight just things going on in the city and they happen to have an article.

about Columbus being on the list of one of the best cities for climate change to live in the future. And they highlighted an article from Policy Genius. So Policy Genius, if you don't know, is a website. Chad kind of explained it to me. He's used it before. So correct me if I'm wrong, but it's a website that basically you can look up any type of insurance policies, whether it be car, home, auto, life.

You can kind of type in your information and it'll basically spit out a whole list of what are the best options for you on there. There we go. Yeah.

Chadwick (03:18.57)
That's a good way to describe it. They help you aggregate your choices.

So don't listen to Flow on Progressive. Just go to Policy Genius and then, yeah.

Shane (03:27.262)
Yeah, flow could be lying to you if flows telling the truth policy genius will have it there but um, Anyway, they had an article They had they put out an article About the best and worst cities for climate change. So basically like with climate change Being a huge impact on the whole world Um, what they did was kind of put together some research and different statistics

Chadwick (03:33.854)
Yeah, do that

Shane (03:57.586)
on what cities, I think they used about a 30 year range in the next 30 years would be the best cities to live in, to try and combat climate change and kind of get away from some of the effects. So we're not gonna of course cover the whole list, but we wanna cover the top 10 cities. Cause as we know climate change, climate is changing, it's happening faster, more dangerous consequences are happening.

Chadwick (04:05.379)
Okay.

Shane (04:27.686)
and specifically in certain cities. There's record-breaking heat, sea levels rising, a surge in devastating storms and wildfires. So there's no denying that it's here. If you're listening to our podcast, I'm assuming that you are a person that knows, you're not a climate denier and you're doing what you can to try and combat climate change. So.

Chadwick (04:27.918)
Cheers.

Chadwick (04:48.886)
You're not a climate denier.

Shane (04:57.486)
Um, and then also when it comes to purchasing a home, 30 year mortgages are the normal, um, normal when buying a home. So really right now is, is a very important time to decide where you want to settle down. Um, because that, if you're, like I said, if you're not a climate change denier, um, some of these statistics could actually affect your decision.

on where you're planning to live 30 years from now.

Chadwick (05:29.986)
You know? Yeah, I mean, it's a good scale of time to like do this review and research. I applaud those efforts, which kind of pivots into like how did they come up with this list, right? So like Shane was explaining, like, however it's happening, depending on your outlook, like climate change is real, it's there. People buy homes all the time and...

Shane (05:38.537)
Yeah.

Chadwick (05:55.69)
Right now the interest rate environment's a little bit higher, so there's less supply, you know, it's more expensive, but people are still in the business of buying and selling homes. So if you're going to look at where to settle, you might want to consider the climate. A lot of people do, right, amongst other things, but climate is inching up in that criteria bucket to be a more and more of a priority for many and many as we'll get into this.

But so Policy Genius used different datasets around suggesting which cities might fare best or worst in the coming 30 years. And they used one, two, three, six data topics, the first being heat and humidity. Not everyone likes all the heat, not everyone likes all the humidity, so where is it gonna be more, we'll use the word congenial. I think they didn't use that word, but that's kind of the summarization.

flooding and or sea rise levels. So whether you live by the ocean or a river or a flowing body water or a giant lake, flooding is a big deal. It happens quite frequently. Like sea level rise is a big deal. I think right now the current.

What do I want to say it as? So along the southern coast of California, they're getting smashed with super giant waves that are untypical. You know, they usually get like stormy weather in the winter in Southern California, but with El Nino and other things with the ocean, like it's, go on YouTube, go on some of the news. Like it's pretty vicious. You don't want to be where those waves are crashing. I actually watched a truck get washed like 50 feet and it was parked like.

Shane (07:28.158)
Yeah.

Shane (07:40.521)
No.

Chadwick (07:46.09)
100 yards from the beach from the ocean so It's a little crazy. Oh, yeah, Mother Nature is don't mess with Mother Nature So going along with that is natural disasters. I mean Shane I don't know if you saw this in the news, but on Tuesday this week Queens, New York specifically Roosevelt Island. I think was that where Astoria, Roosevelt Island. So those of you've been in New York experienced a 1.7

Shane (07:49.681)
by their nature is very powerful. Yeah.

Shane (08:10.142)
Hmm.

Chadwick (08:15.774)
on the Rector scale earthquake on Tuesday. Apparently earthquakes are happening mostly everywhere all the time, but they're just little tiny ones, you don't really feel them. But this one was just strong enough that it shook some buildings on Roosevelt Island and Astoria, freaked some people out, submerged some responders, no one was hurt, thank God. So that's a good example of a natural disaster. Where less likely, more likely are they to happen? Air quality? I mean...

Shane (08:17.994)
I did not see that, wow.

Shane (08:25.622)
Mm-hmm.

Chadwick (08:45.642)
I should I say more how many people remember all the images this summer with Canada on fire and the orange skies across many places. It may not do like that kind of Canada burning may not be good for some of these cities on this list because it directly impact them. But overall, like air quality is also impacted by the amount of trees you have and systems you have to keep the air clean, which is nature, social vulnerability and community resilience.

They're not really the same thing. They're a little bit more complicated to unpack, but it's like how nice of a place is it to live there with your neighbors? How well is the community funded, supported through governance, social programs, and just taxpayers doing their taxpayer duties and supporting everyone else? So quality of life, kind of like topics there. So those are the six.

that Policy Genius used, they pulled data sets from multiple research institutions to compare cities across that and give them a score. So I wish I had a drum so I could do the drum roll. But Shane, would you like to share what that top 10 list is?

Shane (09:43.958)
Mm-mm.

Shane (09:47.327)
Yeah.

Shane (09:50.662)
Yeah.

Yeah, or it would be nice if we had the old David Letterman, how he did the top 10 list every episode. So I wish I had a pit. I wish I had a pencil. Yeah. And he would throw the pencil at the screen. I wish I had a pencil right now to throw at my computer. But yeah, we'll start from number 10 and then and then go up to number one. But so number 10, they listed Denver, Colorado.

Chadwick (09:59.507)
Oh, yeah, I totally forgot. Yeah, we could do the Wayne's world, too Yeah, oh, yeah

Call back.

Shane (10:21.598)
Number nine, Richmond, Virginia. Eight is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So not too far from where I'm at. Number seven, we have Portland, Oregon.

Number six, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. So all the cheeseheads there. Five, Baltimore, Maryland.

And number four, we have a city that you're very familiar with, Minneapolis, Minnesota, which is kind of Chad's hometown. Like, you know, he's from the, near enough, you know? Yep. So, and well, being that we have connection to number four, we'll kind of give some of the background of why that was selected. So it says, coming in at number four, the biggest threat Minneapolis residents face is heat.

Chadwick (10:50.338)
and soda.

Chadwick (10:55.946)
Near enough, the biggest city near enough, my hometown, yeah.

Shane (11:14.29)
So by 2050, residents can expect around 15 extremely hot days per year. That's nearly 13 more than today. So I mean, that's a pretty big increase.

Chadwick (11:27.17)
What does that say about all the other cities that already... Oh my God. Yeah.

Shane (11:29.594)
Exactly, exactly. Yep. So, and those rising temps we'll see with it a rising dew point. So days with high heat and humidity are also expected to increase to almost 19 days per year, which are 14 more than today. And it says while 7.2% of the properties will be in a 100 year flood zones come 2050, that's just 0.1% more than today. So that's not a big increase at all.

And then it says, so how is this city preparing for this sweltering heat wave? Pretty well. If it's community resiliency score has anything to say about it. So it says since 2013, the city has been working to reduce energy use, recycle half of all of its city waste and build 30 miles of bicycle lanes to promote green transportation in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2025. Which.

is next year. So that very, very.

Chadwick (12:30.35)
Go Minnesota progressive and pragmatism. That's what I'm hearing. We're gonna make this place a better place to live. Or as I grew up, we're gonna leave it better than the way we found it.

Shane (12:39.059)
Okay.

Shane (12:43.614)
There you go. That sounds like a Minnesota thing right there. So shout out to Minnesota. Number three, we have my city where I live and what I consider my hometown. And I guess the reason why I even came across this article is Columbus, Ohio. So it says, Columbus is three on our list for best cities through some of its projected numbers.

Chadwick (12:45.122)
That's Minnesota for you.

Shane (13:10.75)
will make you realize that San Francisco and Seattle are largely anomalies in how relatively unaffected they'll be by climate change. It says, the biggest risk facing Columbus residents is heat. Ohioans can expect steamier summers come 2050 with an average of 20 days of extreme heat predicted, which is 18 more days than we are experiencing now. So that's a little scary, but, and unfortunately, that's not a dry heat.

The number of days with high heat and humidity is similarly expected to increase to nearly 17 annually by 2050, which is almost 15 more days than today. So we're already a pretty humid city and state, so we just got to buckle down and get ready for some more. But on the brighter side, the risk of hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires remains low as time goes on.

Flooding also shouldn't be a big issue in the future. The percentage of properties in 100 year flood zones is only expected to rise 0.5% versus today to 4.4% in 2050. And it says, though it ranks in the middle of the pack for community resiliency, Ohio's capital is well positioned to adapt to its changing climate, thanks largely to part of Mayor Ginther's bold climate action plan.

for the city to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. So shout out to Columbus, shout out to Mayor Ginther. I definitely personally see all of the different changes that we're going through and all the different projects and things like that. We have a lot of bike lanes being built as well. So it's no surprise for me. And I feel very proud that Columbus made this list.

Chadwick (14:58.933)
Mm-hmm.

Chadwick (15:06.206)
Yeah, it's definitely an up and up city. You and I have talked a lot about that and a lot of investment in resiliency, community outreach, and just like making it a better place to live downtown and around versus the suburbs. And I mean, we've talked about in this past, but like the giant chips at like with a, is it Intuit, not Intuit, um, Intel. Um,

Shane (15:09.927)
Yeah.

Shane (15:27.478)
the um intel

Chadwick (15:31.41)
And then other like major investments that are happening in and around Columbus for technology is like a tech hub. It's it's a growing place. So I can see all that. I will have to like protest because Columbus got four paragraphs. Minneapolis just got three paragraphs. But.

Shane (15:40.586)
Yeah.

Shane (15:48.451)
Yeah

Chadwick (15:53.442)
There is a river going through Columbus, but they talk about flood zones being made low. Like Minneapolis is the city of lakes, so there could be some flooding there, I guess. And it does get a little bit colder up there. But anyways, these are fun cities and a fun list to debate, because I think what gets me going and a little bit more of the research that we can share is that for most prospective buyers, when they're shopping for a home, they're looking at the climate risk impact.

Shane (15:58.282)
Yeah.

Shane (16:04.16)
Yeah.

Shane (16:08.564)
Yeah.

Chadwick (16:23.106)
And I know for myself who's been an avid property looker, searcher, buyer, helper, and I use Redfin pretty regularly and I continuously look at Redfin. When I started they didn't do this and now they do, but each listing has a climate risk evaluation and impact. They give each listing a score on a lot of these same categories like flood, walkability. Like...

Shane (16:32.79)
Mm-hmm.

Shane (16:47.754)
Let's onto.

Chadwick (16:49.238)
that like all that fun stuff and it scores it so you can compare that when you're shopping. And which I find really interesting and I think in that vein is like so a clear majority of people in each region of the United States consider at least one climate risk when shopping for a home. My guess is that's a flood zone or a fire zone depending on where you're at or sea level rise. And a majority of today's buyers are millennial gen z shoppers. I think somewhere it says they make up

Shane (16:53.845)
Mm-hmm.

Chadwick (17:17.402)
as first-time buyers, almost 50% of all buyers are first-time buyer, Gen Z, millennial. And they're more apt and regularly considering climate risk when deciding where to live and to buy homes. And you can see that a lot of the trends, sustainable living, I would argue like in that same lane of like why we even have this podcast and why we ended up in this carbon conversation topics is like we're thinking about this stuff all the time. Like I have kids and

Shane (17:45.054)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Chadwick (17:47.01)
They make decisions based off of how well they think the world may exist 20 years 30 years from now And they're not very positive about it, you know And we're trying to alter support and change that and all of our be carbon-lipe behaviors But this is a big deal, especially when you're investing all that money into a place you're gonna live It's big

Shane (17:51.412)
Mm-hmm.

Shane (18:07.73)
Yeah, and it definitely like it and I guess to wrap to round out the list we got excited because our two cities were on there but number two is Seattle Washington number one San Francisco, California.

Chadwick (18:15.93)
Oh yeah, yeah.

Chadwick (18:22.378)
which I'm still up and like, are you sure that should be on the list? But that's not for me to decide.

Shane (18:24.742)
It's a yeah, maybe they got a little. Yeah, they got a little money under the table on that one, but.

Chadwick (18:34.351)
I don't know. I mean it's a beautiful city. It's a great place to visit, but I don't know.

Shane (18:37.21)
Yeah. Another thing that comes to mind, especially with like policy genius coming out with this list is like, you know, also to take into consideration is like, we were talking about before we started recording is like, who knows, like maybe even banks 20 years from now, maybe the interest rates in certain cities are gonna be higher than other cities because of the risk of maybe people

Chadwick (19:02.466)
Totally. Good call, Shay.

Shane (19:07.534)
leaving sooner than later, not finishing out the term of the mortgage. Insurance rates will definitely be a difference. They already are. I live in a historical floodplain. Anybody that does the research about like Franklin and Columbus, that's like the first thing that's going to be mentioned is like the historic floods a hundred years ago, and there are some houses that are still.

Chadwick (19:15.874)
They already are. Yeah.

Shane (19:36.966)
I don't know the correct terminology, but the way they're zoned, it still shows that they're in a floodplain, even though a lot of work has been done to help with that. And their insurance rates are way higher than some other homes or not available.

Chadwick (19:44.252)
Mm-hmm.

Chadwick (19:50.866)
or not even available. Like, I mean, try to buy homeowner insurance in some of those areas that hurricanes have destroyed in Florida. Like, good luck.

Shane (19:57.99)
Right. Yep. So I mean, you're talking about even with interest rates going up, like then add on a whole nother expense of having this expensive insurance.

Chadwick (20:07.694)
Mm-hmm.

And in that same lane, just like economic outlook, right? So a house for many Americans or a home, it's like the largest purchase they're ever gonna make. Especially if they buy more than one over time, like do the equity gain, but move into something larger for your family or whatever the reasons you would change houses. If it's one of the largest purchases ever you're gonna make, that's a big deal and one of the, I'll say best, but...

great way to gain wealth is to own real estate like real property and For many people it's a home. That's the best there That's their option in an Avenue in and so if you're gonna Be take this seriously you're gonna want to buy to your point like where maybe cheaper to do Because you want to get the best value for your price. So where's home insurance and all the other supportive insurance?

Shane (21:05.202)
Mm-hmm.

Chadwick (21:10.518)
Where is most likely might get the best insurance interest rate if that ever gets tied to climate change? And what's the likelihood your house is gonna exist 30 years from now, right? Is it gonna be in the floodplain? Is it gonna be where like natural disasters consistently happen? Is it gonna be so damn hot? There's no water available Like I mean we didn't talk about the Colorado River and the dam and the access to water out West, right? I mean Phoenix literally stopped building and stopped

Shane (21:17.671)
Exactly. Yep.

Shane (21:27.176)
Mm-hmm.

Chadwick (21:36.566)
Developers from building because there's just no unless you have water you can't build like and there's creative and we could talk about all that stuff in different like Yeah, but it's a huge deal and it's a like if you're 32 years old and you're looking to buy your first house Are you gonna go do it where you this may not be your house or so? I mean, that's another risk. You got a factor into your decision. I'm just getting all like

Shane (21:44.658)
Yeah, there's just so many ins and outs of it. Yeah.

Shane (22:00.19)
Yeah.

Shane (22:04.198)
Yep. Yeah. I mean, it's a it's a fun topic. And yeah, we both I've learned a lot about real estate and things like that from you and Lauren and like it's something that if I were speaking to someone younger than me that is looking to, you know, start that journey. Like this is definitely something that I would mention to them or even more specifically to people that want to begin their own real estate portfolio to where.

Chadwick (22:05.742)
I'm pretty pre-clempt about this.

Chadwick (22:27.33)
Mm-hmm.

Shane (22:33.866)
30 years from now, they have this income coming in. This is definitely something that you wanna take into consideration because you don't wanna own a bunch of homes in a city where in 30 years, no one's gonna really wanna live because people are gonna start moving and then you're gonna have to charge super low rent. So, I mean, there's just so many things involved in this topic. And like I said,

Chadwick (22:49.063)
Or can.

Chadwick (22:59.597)
Yeah.

Shane (23:00.346)
We brought it up because, you know, two of our home cities are listed, but it's above that. It's just a way more important topic than I guess what we're presenting it as. And we recommend everyone to check out this article. The link will be in the bio and kind of read the information because it also lists the worst cities, so that'll kind of give you some insight on what to look for too. So.

Chadwick (23:21.898)
Yeah. I won't, I won't, I don't remember what the, no I do remember Houston, Texas is the worst city. And then the following five is pretty much Florida. Like pick a big city in Florida, it's in that list.

Shane (23:31.49)
Yeah. And in Florida. Yeah. If there aren't enough reasons to leave Florida now, this should be another reason. But but now check it out. Hopefully this gives, you know, some important information to someone out there. So this was a good topic. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So another shout out to Columbus and to

Chadwick (23:42.213)
Yeah.

Chadwick (23:51.458)
Definitely. Good topic. Good fine chain. God is all fired up.

Shane (24:01.31)
Let's just say the whole state of Minnesota, the whole state of Ohio, the whole state of Minnesota.

Chadwick (24:04.031)
Eric.

It may not always deliver what you wanted politically, but both states are quality places to live and raise families.

Shane (24:14.11)
They are, yep. So we hope you guys enjoyed this episode. We appreciate you taking the time out to listen and.

Chadwick (24:19.99)
Definitely.

Chadwick (24:23.438)
And if you just recently are thinking about buying a house and you want to learn more, let us know. Like, we're happy to chat about it. I mean, it is a sport for me. Like, I love learning about real estate.

Shane (24:28.602)
Yeah. Yep.

Shane (24:34.13)
Yeah, Chad knows a lot, so hit us up.

Chadwick (24:38.614)
Hit us up, indeed. Well.

Shane (24:42.099)
Until next time.

Chadwick (24:43.638)
Till next time, Shane. Have a good night.