The Great Retreat: Structural Devaluation of Coastal Megacities & Global Inland Refocusing

The Great Retreat describes the permanent geopolitical and infrastructural shift resulting from the increasing economic unviability and physical instability of low-lying coastal megacities. As thermal expansion, altered atmospheric energy cycles, and accelerated glacial melt drive global mean sea level rises (GLR), major deltaic zones—including significant portions of Southeast Asia, the Nile deltas, and North American coastlines—are undergoing structural devaluation relative to high-elevation interior regions. This process is not merely a series of localized disasters but constitutes a fundamental re-mapping of human economic density and resource management priorities on global scales.