About 3 million Americans are already "climate migrants," analysis finds. Here's where they left.
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About 3.2 million Americans have moved due to the mounting risk of flooding, the First Street Foundation said in a report that focuses on so-called "climate abandonment areas," or locations where the local population fell between 2000 and 2020 because of risks linked to climate change.
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About 513 counties saw their populations grow at a faster-than-average pace during the last two decades, yet they also included neighborhoods that lost population in areas of high flooding risk, the analysis found.
Most of those areas are concentrated in three regions:
- Gulf Coast of Texas
- Mid-Atlantic region between Washington, D.C., and New Jersey
- Most of coastal Florida
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"In many coastal cities, we see that the draw, or "pull," of the amenities and economic opportunity in the region is stronger than the "push" from flood risks, he noted. But "downward migration" is likely to occur in the Midwest and Northeast because these regions don't have the same attraction for people who are relocating, he noted.
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