R.J. Lehmann on Barrier Island Development
Very Serious – ICLE Editor-in-Chief R.J. Lehmann was quoted in Josh Barro’s Very Serious newsletter in an item about development on barrier islands such as New York’s Fire Island. You can read full newsletter (behind a subscriber firewall) here.
It’s funny that Gavin is the one who brings this up because RJ, who wrote in with a cultural question, happens to be an expert on public policy related to property insurance. I called up RJ to ask what he thinks about me owning a house on a barrier island.
“In the long term, is it a good idea to live on a barrier island?” he asked back to me, rhetorically. “Probably not.”
Barrier islands are always subject to erosion, storms and flooding; climate change and sea-level rise raise the possibility that many of them will be uninhabitable or submerged in 100 years, RJ noted. And my entirely serious retort to him was that I plan to be dead in 100 years.