The best US cities to live in to escape the worst effects of climate change

Portland Oregon

A safe haven sounds like a good idea right about now.

Somewhere warm, but not too warm; free from roof-toppling hurricanes and ground-rumbling earthquakes; close to a river or ocean, but far enough to avoid the threats of flooding and sea level rise.

Which places does that leave? According to climate scientists and urban planners, not a lot.

"The bottom line is it’s going to be bad everywhere," Bruce Riordan, the director of the Climate Readiness Institute at the University of California Berkeley, told Business Insider. "It’s a matter of who gets organized around this."

Still, there are some cities with a better chance of surviving the onslaught of a warmer planet, Vivek Shandas, an urban-planning professor at Portland State University, told Business Insider.

"There are places that might at least temper the effects of climate change," he said.

Shandas is part of a research group studying this very question. When evaluating how prepared cities are for climate change, he and his team look at a handful of factors, including policy and politics, community organization, and infrastructure. The research so far indicates that the following locations could be your best bet over the next five decades — especially if you're investing in a home or property.

Seattle, Washington

The Pacific Northwest is the best overall US region for escaping the brunt of climate change, Shandas said.

Cities in the area aren't perfect — "they have other challenges," he said, but added that "their infrastructure tends to be newer and more resilient to major shocks." That's is key when it comes to coping with heat and rising water.

Seattle is one of the most "well-positioned" of these cities, Shandas said.

Portland, Oregon

Portland was the first US city to come up with a plan to prepare for climate change. The city's historic Climate Action Plan, created in 1993, is a set of policies and initiatives aimed at slashing the city's carbon emissions. The goal is to cut them 40% by 2030 and 80% by 2050.

Portland is also one of the only cities with a specific working group tasked with reducing racial and economic inequality — a key measure of a city's ability to cope with natural disasters and climate change. "Neighborhoods that are connected do better when [disasters] happen," Riordan said.

San Francisco, California

As one of the most recently developed cities in the US, San Francisco is better equipped to take on many natural disasters, Shandas said. It also ranks second on a list of the 10 best cities for public transit, according to AllTransit, a ranking designed by two nonprofit research institutes. According to the measure, 98% of San Francisco's population lives within a half-mile of regularly-operating transportation, a key measure of the health of that piece of infrastructure.

"There are not many cities in the US that rank well in terms of infrastructure, but newer cities fare much better," Shandas said.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider