“My heart hurts,” she said. “I would like my children to give you the option to place their foot within the door and arrange a farm, after which potentially buy an even bigger home once they get married and have children. But it looks like they can not even afford that first house.”
Duluth is not the only city in America that has been hailed as a climate hotspot, and others like Buffalo have relied on the label with information and marketing campaigns. But in Duluth, Mayor Emily Larson distances herself from the thought.
“The concept that we ignore the needs of our planet a lot that individuals must move around is horrifying. It’s dystopian,” she said in an interview at Duluth City Hall, a big, cavernous granite constructing with Doric columns and arched windows. Built in 1928 as a part of a Beaux-Arts civic center, it sits in the center of Duluth’s dilapidated downtown area, where cocktail bars and co-working spaces form a checkerboard pattern of derelict shops. “I don’t desire to prey on it.”
Ms. Larson, town’s first female mayor, is serving a second term and has achieved sustainability initiatives – reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by town; investing in solar energy – a cornerstone of her administration. He estimates that Duluth, with a current population of just below 87,000 people, has the infrastructure to accommodate 130,000 people. But its housing stock is aging and limited — low-cost housing is scarce, and in 2021 the emptiness rate for rent was only 2 percent.
Larson said before inviting an influx of recent residents, town must construct for its existing ones, or as she put it, “placed on your individual oxygen mask first.” She said they should create more multi-family units and refurbish most of the city’s older structures which can be in disrepair.
“People need climate shelter, but there’s potential for seismic conflict. We’re coping with it immediately,” she said.
