The Great Lakes Green Belt
Revitalizing America’s Post-Industrial Cities Through the Resettlement of Environmental Migrants
Climate change is accelerating. The “human climate niche,” the portion of the earth’s surface that experiences the optimal climate conditions for human life, is shifting. Large segments of the world’s population will soon be left living in areas not suited for human life. As a consequence, displacement is projected to increase dramatically, with an estimated 25 million to one billion migrants expected to be on the move as a result of climate change by 2050. Unfortunately, the rigidity of the modern nation-state regime, the international borders that define it, and the resulting limits on any universal freedom of movement severely restrict the most natural mechanism that humans have for adapting to the effects of climate change: migration.
At the same time, many of the world’s wealthier nations are experiencing slowing or declining population growth rates. Resulting in aging overall populations, these trends present a serious challenge for the affected nations by threatening to disrupt labor markets, destabilize economic performance, and overextend public services and social welfare programs. In addition, the economies of these developed nations have largely deindustrialized in a shift to service provision. As a result, there are countless post-industrial cities, once home to large numbers of manufacturing jobs, which have seen dramatic declines in population over the last fifty to one hundred years. These once thriving cities have been left destitute and in severe need of both human capital and financial investment.
When taken together, though, these challenges present an opportunity. Up until now, resettlement as a mechanism for responding to displacement has been relatively underutilized and rarely leveraged for the benefits it can produce. If reimagined and expanded, the resettlement of displaced people, especially environmental migrants, can be reframed not as burden-sharing alone, but as an opportunity to replenish declining populations. Wherever this need and favorable climate conditions coincide, resettlement should be leveraged as a strategy for stimulating economic growth, revitalizing abandoned built environments, and creating opportunities for both displaced and host communities alike.
With declining birthrates and immigration rates combined with an aging population, the United States of America is facing an impending demographic crisis. As the predominant geopolitical power since the end of World War II, these challenges threaten to undermine its position and upend the current world order. Given its long history as a nation of immigrants and its legacy as a leader in refugee resettlement, though, no country is better poised to meet these challenges by exploiting the potential advantages of environmental migration.
While projections suggest that over the next fifty years the shift of the “human climate niche” will lead to deteriorating conditions across much of the country’s most densely populated areas, the Great Lakes Region is expected to experience improving conditions. What was once the nation’s industrial heartland has steadily depopulated and deurbanized over the last sixty years as a result of deindustrialization. With improving climate conditions, though, the region is poised to once again become a hub of growth and development. Through targeted resettlement and strategic investment, the region can be repopulated, revitalized, and subsequently reimagined as “The Great Lakes Green Belt,” a vibrant and dynamic, multicultural region characterized by economic growth, sustainable development, and the creation of a climate haven for both domestic and foreign environmental migrants alike. This would enable the United States to reverse current population trends, revitalize a struggling region, and establish itself as a world leader in responding to climate change and environmental migration.
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