New America’s Great Lakes Resilient Receiving Cities Network Awarded Opportunity Fund Grant from U.S. Bank Foundation

New America’s Future of Land and Housing Program is pleased to announce funding from the U.S. Bank Foundation to support its Great Lakes Resilient Receiving Cities Network. The Network builds the capacity of key stakeholders in Midwest communities to achieve the twin goals of housing affordability and environmental resilience amid projected climate migration inflows. The U.S. Bank Foundation created the Opportunity Fund in 2023 to support organizations working to increase wealth-building opportunities in low- to moderate-income communities.

Millions of Americans could relocate in the coming decades due to the impacts of climate change. Research suggests that many domestic climate migrants will likely end up in “receiving cities” around the Great Lakes, a region generally more resilient than other places in the United States. Anticipated receiving cities, such as Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Cincinnati, Ohio, could benefit from the economic stimulus that often accompanies population growth. To various degrees, these cities experienced deindustrialization, disinvestment, and population decline during the late twentieth century, and, as a result, possess significant urban carrying capacity and a desire for economic diversification and revitalization.

However, many future receiving cities lack adequate housing, infrastructure, and public services to support large population increases. Despite infamously having thousands of vacant and abandoned buildings, for example, Detroit was short 24,000 habitable homes after accounting for blight, according to a 2020 study from the University of Michigan. Recent examples show that the rapid and unplanned arrival of climate migrants can overwhelm local housing supply, exacerbate unaffordability, displacement, and homelessness, and place additional stress on housing assistance programs, legal aid clinics, and other related services.

Potential receiving cities like Minneapolis and Cincinnati must proactively plan, budget for, and implement a series of housing-related investments and policies that allow growth in ways that are welcoming, resilient, and equitable. In fact, preparation for climate migration overlaps considerably with many well-regarded community development practices, and includes aims like inclusionary zoning, affordable housing development, and improved service delivery related to first-time homeownership, rental assistance, legal aid, and other public programs.

Decision-makers should incorporate climate migration projections into their mid- to long-term planning processes, risk and vulnerability assessments, and future strategies related to land use and housing. Receiving cities should assess their physical infrastructure and public services for vulnerabilities that are likely to become worse due to the combined effects of climate migration and increased housing demand. Collaboration and community engagement during planning and other strategy sessions can leverage local expertise and help to effectively identify any gaps and resident concerns.

Indeed, residents who will be most impacted by these changes must be at the table from the outset of any conversations on housing and climate migration. New America will utilize CivicSpace, our people-centered approach for pursuing community-informed change, to ensure these groups are included from the start.

In spring 2025, New America deployed CivicSpace to convene a resident-led scenario planning session on Chicago’s South Side. We brought together over 60 neighborhood residents, policymakers, climate and housing experts, and nonprofit and philanthropic leaders to envision what climate migration might mean for their homes and communities. Drawing from both lived experiences and strategic foresight tools, the conversation focused on how the dynamics introduced by climate-induced population growth could complicate existing challenges around affordable homes, employment, and accessible transit, while at the same time providing an opportunity to reimagine South Side neighborhoods, jobs, and housing conditions.

With support from the U.S. Bank Foundation, New America is partnering with Hope Community, a local housing and community development nonprofit in the Phillips neighborhood of South Minneapolis, to host a similar resident-led scenario planning session on climate migration. Building on our approach in Chicago, we’ll bring together local residents and a small number of key decision-makers and other stakeholders to engage in a forward-looking exercise that imagines a positive future for housing in Minneapolis amid climate-induced population growth. At the same time, we’ll dig into these issues in Cincinnati, a city that we see as a national leader in planning for climate-driven population growth.

New America will utilize our research findings from both Minneapolis and Cincinnati to identify needs, barriers, and opportunities related to long-term affordable housing access in both cities. We’ll subsequently outline policy and programming recommendations that allow decision-makers and their constituents to develop the requisite housing upgrades and effectively absorb climate migration inflows.

Ultimately, we’ll seize on the momentum from this work and stand up the Great Lakes Resilient Receiving Cities Network, a peer-to-peer learning network of three to five cities that will work collaboratively and with New America to better position their housing in anticipation of climate migration.