I think for a lot of people, their deeded land is in eventually in terms of lat/long, and if the water swallows their land or their land falls in the sea, they're pretty much SOL. Depending on the rules of their locality, they may keep ownership of the land that's now underwater: it may effectively cease if underwater land is not subject to private ownership, or it may continue but not be of value because you may not be able to exclude other people from the land (or the waters above it) or develop it.
For some though, the deed may be defined in terms of the coastline, and then they're going to have an interesting legal battle. But this isn't without precedent; coastlines and waterways change and things defined against them adapt.
That portion of the Northeast quarter of Section X, Township Y North, Range Z East, W.M., in Blank County, Washington, described as follows:
The Southwest quarter of the Southeast quarter of the Northeast quarter of said Section. Except for some bits that aren't relevant.
That's not in terms of lat/long per se, but the section and townships are effectively equivalent to lat/long. If the shoreline moves, my property doesn't. Technically everything is relative to this stone ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willamette_Stone
40% of the world’s population lives within 100 kilometers of the coast[1]. If one person makes a bad purchase of land, the problem is theirs. If 3 billion people make bad purchases of land, that's a problem for everyone in the world.
Probably we can't blame most of those people for much beyond being born where they were.
>>Society at large should not have to keep bailing out people who make poor decisions like this.
I get your point, and I agree to a certain extent, but do you apply this same approach to other bad decisions such as EG overeating causing obesity, drug taking etc?
I'm honestly not sure which point you're making in this thread. Are you saying that government should somehow make people whole for the loss of their coastal property? Or are you making the point that the government has no business interfering with the property rights of others? There seems to be a tension here, because I don't see how you could do the latter without also doing the latter — i.e., making coastal property owners whole requires taking someone else's property (either money or real property) and giving it to them. Or maybe you'd propose that we resettle them onto federal lands? (Even in that case, taxpayers bear a significant opportunity cost.)
My original point was that it is easy for people to advocate for the government to take people's property away, when they have no property of their own or no skin in the game.
My other point was just a wider one on moral hazard, and if it applies to coastal property (in that people bear their own costs) should it apply to EG obesity (where people should bear the cost of healthcare issues). If not, why is property a separate case?
