It is hard to predict the future, and while I don’t know when the ice will melt leaving most coastal cities underwater (if ever). I often try to think which places in the world will continue to be livable.
I think there are 3 vital factors, and a few more that are less vital.
For starters, how likely is a place to be underwater in the next X years. For those of you who are avid consumers of end of the world cataclysmic porn you might have seen a dozen map renders of how the world will look like post flood. So a conservative choice means any current city near the coast will be no longer habitable. Quite a tragedy given that something like 2/3 of the worlds population lives by the coast.
Second is water, after all you are kind of able to live with little water, but having grown up in a place with an insane surplus of water I’d rather not get used to living in a place with stressed water capacity. In this regard you would need to live in a place with a mayor river or an abundance of lakes. Abundant rain might sound nice, but an excess of rain can make survival equally challenging. Even if the world doesn’t go underwater, water security is already a major issue. Choosing to live in a place with little water just makes little sense.
A bit tied with water security comes temperature (the third major factor). Growing up in Cancun I did not remember summers being so hot, and well it seems like a very established trend everywhere that temperature keeps raising. While I’ve lived in places with temperatures in the mid 40s I’d rather not do that. In practice a place like Cancun which can hover around the mid 30s during summer, might just very well end up seeing summers in the mid 40s in the coming decades.
Thus going north, to a place with abundant lakes and elevations sounds like a good start. Needless to say desert areas are off the list, particularly those outrageous cases of deserts that love using their water to grow water intensive crops.
How north? Well that’s a good question. Historically civilization has thrived and developed the most in temperate weather with ample water (sauf notable exceptions). Alaska, north Canada or Scandinavia might fit under the above trifecta of characteristics, might even want to add Siberia to the list barring how hard it will be to predict the future of the Russian state.
Assuming that in the future we can produce food with artificial light in a very sustainable manner, the extreme weather and lack of sun would not be a major problem for food production. I’m really looking forward to eating Alaskan mangos in the future. However so far north might not qualify as temperate weather in the future. Personally I’d rather not live in a place where you have winters with 24 hours of perpetual night.
So you have to draw the line somewhere along south Canada in the Americas or as north as Paris in Europe (yes I’ve chosen to ignore the southern hemisphere for most of this post, but it’s okay they are already used to being ignored down there) if you want to have sun for the sole purpose of remaining sane.
Besides sunshine one more factor to keep in mind is existing civilization and infrastructure, since it will make early settlement easier. The last of the minor factors would be access to guns, since in a post cataclysmic world some degree of collapse of civilization will occur, thus a wild west scenario might be the norm. Throughout human history a number of mass migration events like the ones of 300bc, 500ad, 1200ad occurred, while we don’t have all the details it is likely that climate drove many of those. Likewise such periods of history where among some of the most violent in humanity. Lack of food and water just brews violence.
So what places make the best match for such factors described above?
I’m no geographer, but an overlap of a map of elevation, current water security and climate classification is probably a good start. Then again, it’s hard to predict the future. One thing I do know is that without water life will become very hard. I often ponder upon where should I settle, I have not come up with an answer.
