Should we just give coastal Florida back to nature?

 I try to think like a Futurist. (That isn't to say that I ever do it well.) But the question churning in my mind is: At what point do we need to de-populate the coastal areas of Florida? I could imagine giving everything below, say, 50' elevation in Florida back to nature, and people would simply be moved to higher ground. Let Nature take over the coasts. People could go there for the day to play on the beach or marvel at the crumbling post-modern buildings as they rusted back to ground.

That's short term thinking, however, as yet another hurricane forms to slam into Florida's west coast. Long-term thinking would be to anticipate 50' sea level rise, or even 200', when/if all the land ice melts. Might as well get started now in our preparations, instead of just rebuilding over and over in places where the new construction will only be destroyed again. That feels futile and misguided.

And if Governor Desantis finds himself king of a smaller and smaller land, that might be a satisfying byproduct.



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