Denver Among Best Cities For Climate Change: Policygenius

DENVER, CO — Policygenius, the online insurance marketplace, named Denver as the tenth-best city to live in by 2050 for climate change in a report released Feb. 22.

The report analyzed the 452 most populated metro areas in the country using data from the 2020 U.S. census, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Environmental Protection Agency and several other studies.

The report looked at 13 specific data points to determine its rankings:

• The projected average number of days from 2040 to 2059 with extreme temperatures above 95 degrees
• The projected increase in days with extreme heat
• The number of days with high wet-bulb temperatures
• The Increase in days with high wet-bulb temperatures
• Percentage of properties with at least a 10% annual chance of flooding by 2050
• Percentage of properties in 100-year flood plains by 2050
• Increase in percentage of properties in flood zones
• Probability of hurricanes
• Probability of tornadoes
• Probability of wildfires
• How vulnerable a place is to climate change
• How resilient a place is at preparing and adapting to climate change

The report weighed each factor equally to determine a potential ranking of the safest places to live as the country begins to see even greater physical impacts of climate change. Denver landed at no. 10 on the company's ranking of the best cities to live in, keeping climate change in mind.

"So is Colorado devoid of any severe climate-related challenges? Not quite. It scores similarly to Portland and Seattle in its risk of wildfires. But unlike those other two cities, it scores below average for air quality — with just 43 percent of days measuring 'good' in 2021," the report says. "Unfortunately, the city doesn’t seem to be as good at adapting to the changing climate as others on our best list — scoring fairly low for its community resilience."

While Denver is expected to experience an average of 33 days of extreme heat by 2050, the city's low humidity levels and low risk of flooding are not expected to increase in a threatening way, the report says.

The 10 best cities for climate change:

1. San Francisco, CA
2. Seattle, WA
3. Columbus, OH
4. Minneapolis, MN
5. Baltimore, MD
6. Milwaukee, WI
7. Portland, OR
8. Pittsburgh, PA
9. Richmond, VA
10. Denver, CO

The 10 worst cities for climate change:

1. Houston, TX
2. Miami, FL
3. Tampa, FL
4. Jacksonville, FL
5. Orlando, FL
6. New Orleans, LA
7. Los Angeles, CA
8. Memphis, TN
9. Riverside, CA
10. Virginia Beach, VA

You can read the full report here.