Interviews with Stakeholders: The Potential Social, Environmental, and Economic Impacts on Duluth, Minnesota, as a Climate Refuge

Abstract

In March 2019, Dr. Jesse Keenan—formerly of the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University —introduced the slogan “Duluth: The Most Climate-Proof City in America” (Keenan, 2019). He suggested that city officials should market Duluth to people relocating from climate-impacted regions, citing Duluth’s (Minnesota) cool climate, inland location, and access to fresh water as factors that make Duluth more resilient to the future impacts of climate change. Despite high levels of media attention, the literature is just beginning to address climate migration not owing to sea-level rise; the migration toward climate-friendly “destination cities” like Duluth; the perceptions of those in destination cities; and policy, social, and economic factors that could pull people toward destination cities.

Given the gaps in the literature, our research sought to examine the potential social, environmental, and economic impacts of climate migration on receiving communities like Duluth through interviews with stakeholders. In total, we interviewed 18 individuals including people from climate advocacy groups, city and state governments, tribal communities, higher education, businesses, and the energy sector, and those who were clergy, researchers and climate scientists, biologists, landscape architects, and funders. Some participants represented multiple areas.

Participants talked about existing community concerns, the most prominent being housing and racial and socioeconomic equity. The participants cited community assets as well including social capital and aspects of infrastructure related to Duluth, which once had a larger population.