Can Florida’s Coast Survive Its Reliance on Development?

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings

With its densely built coastline and economic and fiscal reliance on development, Florida is an extreme case of how climate change threatens both the built environment and urban land governance. We conducted one of the first statewide assessments of how sea level rise will affect Florida’s municipal revenues. We paired this with a statewide survey of coastal planners and managers to assess how they have been funding climate adaptation. We found that more than half of Florida’s 410 municipalities will be affected by sea level rise, exposing on average almost 30% of local revenues. Yet, though climate impacts will significantly stress local fiscal health, we found no relationship between cities’ prioritization of climate adaptation and their fiscal exposure.

Takeaway for practice

Municipal revenues will become increasingly eroded by climate impacts and market responses. More fiscally affected municipalities are comparatively smaller, Whiter, and wealthier. They may be better able to invest in near-term adaptations, but long-term sea level rise could erode local fiscal capacity to maintain infrastructure and protect local tax bases. These municipalities’ fiscal health and decline will affect regionwide housing markets, gentrification, and displacement. These dynamics underscore the need for stronger regional climate assessments and land and tax governance to overcome challenges facing coastal and near-coastal municipalities.

Keywords:

• climate adaptation
• coastal development
• municipal finance
• property tax
• sea level rise

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the planners and managers who participated in the survey research and interviews. We also thank Dr. Kristina Dahl at the Union of Concerned Scientists for sharing sea level rise maps and troubleshooting research methods. We thank three anonymous reviewers for their comments, which have helped improve the article.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Research Support

Cornell University’s Institute of Social Sciences Faculty Small Grant and Knight Writing Institute and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection Resilient Coastlines Program funded this research.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental data for this article can be found at https://doi.org/10.6077/knay-8v97.

Notes

1 We are grateful to an anonymous reviewer for clarifying this point.

2 A diverse set of adaptation strategies for Florida’s environment can be found at the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact’s Regional Climate Action Plan 3.0 (Compact, 2022). Rising seas are pushing groundwater up through limestone under much of Florida, causing pervasive flooding and water supply challenges (Strauss et al., 2014). In the long term, relocation and demolition of existing settlements is likely inevitable.

3 There is a 5% probability that SLR will exceed 3 ft by 2050 (Sweet et al., 2022), and 4 ft was a common elevation of landfilling above mean higher high water for much of the coast.

4 Federal investments are also on the rise. The Inflation Reduction Act (2022) budgeted $2.6 billion over 5 years for coastal county resilience project grants (IRA, 2022), and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (2021) included $3 billion for habitat restoration and climate resilience, representing significant new federal investments in green and nature-based infrastructure projects (IIJA, 2021).

Additional information

Funding

This research was conducted on the traditional homelands of the Gayogo̱hó:nǫ’ (the Cayuga Nation) in New York, and the Apalachee Nation, the Muscogee Nation, the Miccosukee Tribe of Florida, and the Seminole Tribe of Florida. Computations were performed using the Cornell Center for Social Science Computing infrastructure.

Notes on contributors

Linda Shi

LINDA SHI ([email protected]) is an assistant professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University.

William Butler

WILLIAM BUTLER ([email protected]) is an associate professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Florida State University.

Tisha Holmes

TISHA HOLMES ([email protected]) is an assistant professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Florida State University.

Ryan Thomas

RYAN THOMAS ([email protected]) received his doctorate from the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University.

Anthony Milordis

ANTHONY MILORDIS ([email protected]) is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Florida State University.

Jonathan Ignatowski

JONATHAN IGNATOWSKI ([email protected]) is a grant advocate and coordinator at the Adirondack North Country Association.

Yousuf Mahid

YOUSUF MAHID ([email protected]) is a doctoral candidate in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University.

Austin M. Aldag

AUSTIN M. ALDAG ([email protected]) is a doctoral candidate in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University.