Originally Posted By: clearwater
Don't build in flood plains.
Don't build where there are earthquakes.
Don't build where there are wild fires.
Don't build where there are targets for terrorists.
Don't build near giant caldera's like yellowstone.
Don't build where droughts and heat extremes are common.
Don't build near blizzard country.
Stay away from places where ticks and mosquitos carry disease.
Avoid rural areas where medical care is distant.
Avoid urban areas where crime is high.


I'm not sure if this is sincere or meant as a joke and certainly not all of the suggestions are plausible. Some are not even possible; for instance as Earth warms there probably won't be any places to live where there aren't droughts and high temps, that will just be the new normal. Nor are all of the listed items particularly dangerous. For example blizzards can occur almost everywhere in the US and Canada so not living there is problematic unless we abandon North America. smirk And while blizzards can and do result in deaths nearly all of those could be prevented by proper preparation. Lastly you can't control what a terrorist decides to target so that doesn't even make logical sense.

Of course some of the list is pretty spot-on. It's not wise to build on an active volcano. It's not smart to build on a site where there have been 18 floods bad enough to destroy your home in 50 years. Wildfires- that's an interesting one. I think that proper forestry management can mitigate the risk of the kind of out-of-control fires we see now, but certainly climate change is making the task more difficult. It might be wise to have some regulations concerning how and where to build and what steps must be taken (eg clear cut zones around residential areas, etc).
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“I'd rather have questions that cannot be answered than answers that can't be questioned.” —Richard Feynman