> says building bridges and moving dirt around causes inequity
Infrastructure is one of the most expensive things people interact with on a regular basis. Choices in how we build infrastructure redirects society's resources on a massive scale. So yes, I do think it's plausible that huge investments in water-resistant infrastructure and wasteful attempts to build Dubai-style island suburbs will redirect resources away from more important issues, like the pressing need in the US to fix existing bridges and roads, build 1.5 million more houses, earthquake-proof the infrastructure in the pacific northwest, and figure out how to get 4800 GW more on the electrical grid cleanly.
When solutions really are that simple, yes, go for the solution that is simple. Of course. Society in general doesn't put enough weight on simple low-tech solutions.
But before prescribing solutions for the general case (the general idea of houses being cut off from the main land), assume that you will face the worst case scenario of complexity and tons of sub-problems -- for example, I'm sure some of the cases examined by this research will also have the problem of underground gas lines, plumbing, electrical, communications services -- and maybe a road that has been damaged beyond trivial repair. It's best to treat those scenarios as losses, especially if additional erosion is predicted in the next 20 or so years and the fix requires much more expensive engineering. Otherwise we will get trapped into a pattern that wastes the best resources of the entire system, for the sake of a few homeowners.
Infrastructure is one of the most expensive things people interact with on a regular basis. Choices in how we build infrastructure redirects society's resources on a massive scale. So yes, I do think it's plausible that huge investments in water-resistant infrastructure and wasteful attempts to build Dubai-style island suburbs will redirect resources away from more important issues, like the pressing need in the US to fix existing bridges and roads, build 1.5 million more houses, earthquake-proof the infrastructure in the pacific northwest, and figure out how to get 4800 GW more on the electrical grid cleanly.