Aug 11, 2023 3 min read

Toledo, Ohio, has been a punchline — or, a punching bag, if you will — in the half-century since singer-songwriter John Denver released “Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio,” an allegedly humorous but pretty bilious ditty about how the city is Nowheresville, with nothing to see, nothing to do, a place where you sit in the park and “watch the grass die.”

People who are from Toledo, or who have visited for a day or two, will acknowledge that the city has had its share of problems in the post-industrial age, and it will never rival Paris or London for cultural amenities or metropolitan bustle. But it has a decent minor league baseball team, a top-drawer museum for a city its size, a world-class zoo, a top-notch library system and inviting metroparks.

Toledo, like other Rust Belt communities, has seen its population decline in recent decades. Parts of town that were once thriving residential areas are now blighted. It could be, however, as the planet warms up due to climate change, Toledo and places like it could see people migrating back to them.

Consider this: One of the fastest-growing locations in America is Maricopa County, Arizona, and its county seat is Phoenix. Almost 1 million additional people have moved there in the last decade. And the high temperature in Phoenix has been over 100 just about every day for weeks now. Some days it has rocketed past the 110 mark. The brutal heat has been accompanied by a drought. According to the Weather Channel’s forecast, the week ahead promises no relief: 115 degrees on Sunday, 113 on Monday, 113 on Tuesday, 111 on Wednesday, 110 on Thursday and 111 on Friday. There’s barely a drop of rain forecast, either.

Who wants to live like that?

Some experts believe millions of people around the world may have to leave their homes and move to milder climates in the decades ahead to escape the heat, the flooding and other extreme weather events springing from climate change. A wealthy nation like the United States would be better positioned to deal with it than poorer countries, but places that are hot now could end up being even hotter and some coastal areas could end up under water.

In 2020, NBC News reported that Buffalo, N.Y., another much-maligned Rust Belt city like Toledo, could be one of “a narrow band” of northern U.S. cities that would be well-positioned when it comes to climate change because of its access to fresh water from the Great Lakes, sea-level elevation, and colder weather that will become more temperate. NBC reported that some Buffalo officials have already talked about the city being a “climate refuge” in the years ahead.

Of course, no one who is rooting for the success of places like Toledo or Buffalo should be rooting for the planet to boil. We can — and should — reduce our emissions so we can make the earth habitable for our children and grandchildren. But the punishing temperatures in Phoenix should make people think again about cities like Toledo.