Across the Great Lakes region, something unexpected is happening. Places long defined by population loss are beginning to see new interest from people seeking safer ground in a changing climate. Cities like Detroit, Cincinnati and Buffalo are discovering that their abundant fresh water, moderate climate risks and rich civic infrastructure could position them as places of real opportunity in the decades ahead.

The question now is whether these cities can harness that opportunity in ways that benefit everyone, including the residents already living there.

Over the past three years, more than 15 million people in the United States have been displaced by climate disasters — more than six times those displaced by the Dust Bowl. Most returned home, but a growing number have not. And tens of millions more people are projected to relocate permanently in the coming decades as rising seas, intensifying storms and extreme heat reshape where Americans can safely live.

“This will become one of the biggest equity issues of our time,” said David Lubell, senior climate mobility and cities fellow at ICLEI USA and founder of Welcoming America. “But it’s also one of the biggest opportunities, if we plan for it.”

Three city archetypes

Lubell and Beth Gibbons, the first Resiliency Director for Washtenaw County, Michigan, are among a growing network of leaders helping communities get ahead of these shifts by building a field of practice around climate mobility.

Climate mobility refers to how people respond to increasingly hazardous environmental conditions — by staying, moving or relocating. It spans short-term disaster displacement, longer-term migration driven by extreme events such as heat, drought, flooding or sea-level rise and planned community relocation.

Lubell shared a city typology first developed by climate resilience leaders Anna Marandi and Kelly Leilani Main that demonstrates how a variety of places will need to grapple with their own distinct challenges and strengths.

Destination a, including Detroit and much of the Great Lakes region, are cities people are expected to relocate to. They have the natural assets and infrastructure to welcome growing populations, though many are still contending with disinvestment, aging housing stock and racial segregation.

Recipient cities like Atlanta, Memphis and Dallas are already absorbing newcomers while managing their own climate vulnerabilities.

And vulnerable cities such as New Orleans, Miami and Houston hold deep community knowledge about resilience and recovery, even as they face the most acute threats that will likely cause population loss.

“We can look around the country and see greater pockets of risk where the need to act is an emergency, and here we have the opportunity still to act with intention and with planning,” Gibbons said.

Without proactive planning, Lubell warns, unmanaged growth can lead to climate gentrification, strained services, the displacement of those most vulnerable, and hostility towards newcomers. He points to the Great Migration of Black Americans from the South to the North as both a cautionary tale and a call to action.

There wasn’t an equitable, welcoming infrastructure in place – in fact it was quite the opposite, Lubell said. When you don’t plan for lots of people arriving, it’s the most marginalized who are affected.

“What if we had really planned for that and intentionally welcomed people?” he asked. “It would have been a very different country.”

Today’s leaders have a chance to write a better story, but only if they start now.

Cleaning the house before the party

In 2025, Cincinnati became the first U.S. city to complete a climate mobility plan, led by the regional climate collaborative Green Umbrella with the support of the Lincoln Institute and HDR. Washtenaw County, Michigan, is the second pilot, and others are currently considering incorporating climate mobility into their city planning.

During Cincinnati’s planning process, a participant offered an analogy that has become a touchstone for the work, Lubell said.

“When you are going to have a party, you clean up your house. And if not as many people come as you expected, you still cleaned up your house, which is great,” he noted.

Investing in housing, water systems, health infrastructure and social services to prepare for newcomers strengthens the community for the people already living there. Either way, everyone benefits.

That’s the goal of focusing specifically on climate mobility, Gibbons said. Integrating how people move, due to climate, into city planning so that our cities can better adapt and be prepared for our changing world.

Planning at the local level

In Washtenaw County, Gibbons is taking a creative approach. Her project, “Shifting Demographics and Changing Climate,” uses the lens of an aging population to connect climate readiness with investments the community already wants to make.

While there isn’t a ton of data that shows a notable change in the demographic trend of people to the Midwest versus the South and Southwest, Gibbons noted a 2024 San Francisco Federal Reserve study that indicated adults in their 20s and 60s have markedly slowed or reversed the historic migration pattern from the Snow Belt to the Sun Belt.

Gibbons said that according to the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, Washtenaw County can expect a 240 percent increase in residents over 65 by 2035.

Coming at the issue from the aging population perspective is one way of opening the door to a conversation, Gibbons said.

“Do we think our infrastructure and our social systems are serving our aging population who are here now? Let’s make sure we can care for people who are already here and care for those that will be arriving.”

But Gibbons is clear-eyed about the challenges. Washtenaw County is the eighth most economically segregated county in the United States. In Ypsilanti, 70% of residents are renters, and 25% of students in local schools are unhoused.

If Ann Arbor grows without coordinated planning, displacement pressure on neighboring Ypsilanti intensifies. That is why Gibbons is working at the county level, connecting the Resiliency Office with the Racial Equity Office, Department of Public Health, Parks and Recreation, Emergency Management and a new Office of Older Adults.

For example, senior centers are being reimagined as resilience hubs that serve entire communities, not just the neighborhoods that already have resources.

Dignity and agency at the center

Both leaders insist that dignity must anchor this work. Climate mobility conversations are fundamentally about people having the opportunity and resources to stay safely or to go, and to be equipped and empowered to make those decisions on their own terms. That includes people with disabilities, those without economic means and communities that carry hard-won knowledge from navigating previous upheavals.

“Are we planning for the future with equity and justice,” Gibbons asked, “or responding with urgency and emergency, which is a continuation of our same systems?”

The window for proactive planning is open, and the momentum is real.

A cohort of 25 cities and counties participated in an ICLEI-USA climate mobility learning network last year, and every single one surveyed asked to continue, Lubell said.

In just two years, the number of communities taking concrete steps has grown significantly. These leaders are not waiting for a crisis to force their hand. They are building the systems, relationships and political will now, while there is still time to do it well.

“This is the next chapter for the United States and for the world — not just building climate mobility infrastructure, but building equity infrastructure in communities across the U.S.,” Lubell said. “And at this time, we’ve got to build that in the future now. So, while everyone’s reading about bad news on their devices, we’re building a new country.”