A critical review of coastal retreat in the USA

There are very few examples of managed retreat in the coastal zone of the USA. Those that exist are primarily the last, desperate acts for communities with limited financial resources (e.g., Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana and the Blue Acres Program in New Jersey). The vast majority of retreat in the coastal United States is either completely unmanaged with some government assistance at the household level, or autonomous relocation driven by economic factors like the inability to rebuild following a storm or lack of insurance. Surprisingly, those properties at greatest exposure to storms (those in resort communities along the oceanfront) have almost no history of retreat. Retreat/relocation in the American coastal zone occurs almost entirely inland in working class and underrepresented communities. The explanation for this dichotomy is simple, coastal protection in the USA is funded largely by the public sector and based almost entirely on a cost/benefit analysis that considers only property values. If your property values are high, you are typically offered protection through coastal engineering like beach nourishment. If your property values are modest, you will be left to find your own solution to the hazards you face. If you are lucky, there may be some assistance available to raise or buyout your home, but this happens in a way with very little planning or foresight. 
In the United States, even the suggestion of managed retreat from the oceanfront is typically dismissed as too expensive to implement or too harmful to the economic prosperity of the community. In an effort to argue for the consideration of retreat as a reasonable option for the expenditure of public funds on the oceanfront, we have conducted a fiscal analysis of the cost of buying out highly-exposed, oceanfront investment homes rather than spending those same funds on long-term coastal protection. This analysis has recently been completed for portions of North Topsail Beach and Rodanthe, North Carolina where large-scale, coastal protection is planned. In both cases, the costs of large-scale buyouts are cheaper than the costs of long-term protection and a full consideration of lost tax revenues from the removed/relocated structures. Furthermore, the fiscal analysis does not include many unquantifiable benefits from the proposed targeted acquisition. These are things like transfer of amenity value to other properties, reduced emergency management costs for the municipality, reduced need for consulting engineering fees, improved beach access for all residents and renters, and significant environmental benefits for the beach/dune system. 
Ultimately, it is our hope that funds used in a more efficient manner for investment properties on the oceanfront could result in greater availability of funds to assist those in residential communities that have a far greater need for a well-managed response to rising sea levels and future storms.