Where to Buy Land for Generational Survivability

Summary

The numbers in this summary use the default weights. If you change the weights, the map, tables and city cards update but this text doesn't.

Why Illinois ranks lowest despite the best soil

Central Illinois has arguably the best farmland on earth, and it scores 5/5 on soil. But generational survivability is about more than this decade's yields:

• Illinois has the hottest projected 2080 climate in the set (southern Illinois summers like today's north Texas or Arkansas).
• It has the highest tornado and derecho exposure.
• It has the least water outside the Mahomet and northern sandstone aquifers.
• Central Illinois farmland is the most expensive in the four states.

Northern Illinois (Ogle, Whiteside, Jo Daviess, Lee, Stephenson) is the state's best ground and lands mid-pack overall.

The Ontario border areas

Across the Detroit, St. Clair and St. Marys rivers, Ontario looks a lot like the Michigan land facing it:

• Essex (65) around Windsor and Leamington has Canada's warmest climate and longest growing season. Lake Erie algal blooms and Windsor's urban pricing hold it back.
• Lambton (65) around Sarnia gets Lake Huron water and lake-moderated summers, but carries the Chemical Valley petrochemical pollution.
• Chatham-Kent (54) has excellent flat farmland, but the Thames floods, the Lake Erie shore is eroding and groundwater is limited.
• Algoma (65), north of Sault Ste. Marie, is Canadian Shield country like the eastern Upper Peninsula: superb water and future climate, poor soil, cheap remote land.

The biggest Ontario factor for a U.S. buyer is legal, not climate. Ontario charges a 25% Non-Resident Speculation Tax on residential purchases, and Canada bans non-Canadians from buying residential property in and around cities until at least 2027. Confirm the current rules with an Ontario real-estate lawyer before treating any of these as an option.

The big metro areas

Big-city suburbs score low everywhere in this model. The reason isn't danger: there is little affordable acreage, and several have specific water problems.

• Twin Cities: St. Paul 20, Minneapolis 28, Bloomington, Brooklyn Park and Blaine 28, Eagan 35, Plymouth 37, Lakeville 43. Woodbury (19) sits inside the 3M PFAS groundwater area.
• Detroit: Detroit 22, with Warren and Dearborn the lowest-scoring cities in the index (13). Dearborn is on the list because of its 2021 basement floods.
• Milwaukee and the Lake Michigan shore: Milwaukee 30 and Waukesha 35, whose wells had radium until the city switched to Lake Michigan water in 2023. Kenosha is 44 and Racine 50. Sheboygan (63) is the standout: Lake Michigan water, good dairy land and moderate prices.

Outside the metros, the strongest Minnesota cities are Fergus Falls, Alexandria, Duluth, St. Cloud, Grand Rapids and Brainerd. In Michigan they are Ludington, Sault Ste. Marie, Escanaba, Traverse City, Petoskey and Bay City.

Your six cities, compared

• River Falls, WI (63) is the strongest of the six. It sits in the western Wisconsin belt with spring-fed cold groundwater (the Kinnickinnic), good silt-loam soils and moderate hazards. Its only real weakness is Twin Cities commuter pricing, so look on the Pierce County side.
• Rhinelander, WI (56) and Oregon, WI (56) tie, for opposite reasons. Rhinelander wins on water and future climate but has poor soil, a short season and municipal PFAS history. Oregon wins on soil but faces more future heat and Dane County prices.
• Fitchburg, WI (50) has the same land as Oregon at Madison suburban prices. It's a great place to live, but an expensive place to buy acreage.
• Rockford, IL (46) is the best Illinois option of the six and only a few points behind Fitchburg. It has a deep reliable aquifer and excellent surrounding farmland, offset by a hotter future and higher tornado exposure.
• Mattoon, IL (22) is the weakest of the six. It depends on reservoirs for water, has one of the hottest projected futures in the set and sits in the most active tornado corridor, though it does have good soil and cheap housing.

For contrast, the best-scoring indexed cities are Fergus Falls MN and Ludington MI (93), Alexandria MN (87), Sault Ste. Marie MI and Escanaba MI (85), and Traverse City and Petoskey MI (81). La Crosse (33) scores low because of Mississippi flooding, French Island PFAS and steep-valley flash floods. Green Bay is at 57.

How the climate here is changing

• Warming is fastest in winter, and in the north. All four states have warmed roughly 2–3°F since 1900, and winters are warming several times faster than summers. Minnesota and Michigan's Upper Peninsula are among the fastest-warming areas in the contiguous U.S.
• Rain comes in bigger bursts. Heavy-precipitation days have risen sharply across the Midwest. That drives the flash floods in the Driftless valleys, the river floods along the Red, Illinois and Mississippi, and the basement floods in Detroit and Chicago. "Flood-then-drought whiplash" is now the main farming risk.
• The 2050–2080 shift moves climates roughly 300–500 miles south. Under mid-to-high emissions pathways:
  • Southern Illinois summers come to resemble today's Texas or Arkansas.
  • Central Illinois and southern MN/WI summers resemble today's Kansas or Missouri.
  • Northern Michigan, the UP and northern MN/WI shift toward today's southern Wisconsin or Michigan.
  Growing seasons lengthen 2–4 weeks everywhere. That's why the model rewards the north on future trajectory even where today's soils are mediocre.
• The Great Lakes buffer against extremes. Lake-adjacent land warms more slowly in summer, gets fewer extreme heat days and has far more water. That's the main reason Michigan's lakeshores and the Lake Superior coast rank so high.
• Water becomes the long-run trump card. The Great Lakes hold about 20% of the world's surface fresh water, and the 2008 Great Lakes Compact restricts moving it out of the basin. Being inside the basin, or over a deep, clean aquifer, is the closest thing to a guarantee this region offers.
• The northern forest will change. Spruce, fir, birch and aspen are projected to retreat toward Canada and give way to maple, oak and savanna. Expect fire, pest and windthrow stress in the transition, especially in jack-pine and pine-barrens country (Grayling MI, northwest Wisconsin, the Arrowhead).

Region by region — best to worst by average county score

How the score is built

Factor	Default weight	What scores high (5)	What scores low (1)
Water security	25%	Great Lakes basin, many lakes, high clean water table, deep glacial or sandstone aquifers	Thin aquifers, saline groundwater, reservoir dependence, irrigation drawdown, PFAS/nitrate/radium/lead contamination
Soil & food	20%	Deep prairie or silt-loam soils (USDA prime farmland)	Rock, peat, blow sand, urban land
Hazard safety	20%	Low combined flood, drought, wildfire, tornado/derecho, heat and seismic exposure	Repeated major river flooding, tornado corridors, New Madrid seismic zone, high wildfire exposure
2050–2080 trajectory	20%	Warming improves the climate (longer season, milder winters) without bringing heat or drought stress	Warming brings severe heat, drought and moisture deficits
Practical	15%	Affordable private land, stable rural community, services within reach	Metro prices, mostly public or reservation land, known contamination sites, steep decline

Each county's raw score is the weighted average of its five 1–5 factor scores. That raw score is then rescaled so the best area in the set is 100 and the worst is 0, which means a score only says how a place compares within this set. The five map classes are quintiles of the 348 areas, recomputed whenever you change the weights. Cities use the same formula and the same scale (cities can fall outside 0–100), so a city's number compares directly with any county's.

Where the scores come from. Each factor score is an informed judgment based on publicly documented patterns, including:

• State climatology and climate-impact reports: the MN DNR, WICCI, the Michigan State Climatologist and the Illinois State Water Survey.
• NOAA and NCA5 Midwest climate projections.
• USDA soil surveys.
• FEMA flood history and the National Risk Index, and USGS seismic hazard maps.
• State PFAS, nitrate, lead and groundwater-drawdown findings.

The scores were not computed directly from those raw datasets. Use them to decide where to look, not as a parcel appraisal.

Before you buy: check the parcel, not just the county

County and city averages hide enormous variation. A ridge-top farm in a middle-ranked county can beat a floodplain parcel in a top-ranked one. For any specific property:

1. Test the well for nitrate, bacteria, arsenic, PFAS and radium (radium is common in eastern WI and northern IL deep wells). Look up the well log, how deep the well is and what aquifer it draws from: MN County Well Index, WI DNR well constructor reports, Michigan Wellogic, ISWS well records.
2. Check flood exposure on FEMA flood maps, and also check height above the nearest creek. Many floods hit land outside mapped zones. Buy mid-slope or ridge, not valley floor or river bottom.
3. Pull the soil report from USDA Web Soil Survey. Look for prime farmland or "farmland of statewide importance", drainage class (watch for claypan in southern IL), and slope.
4. Assess wildfire in the north: distance to continuous jack pine, red pine or spruce, access roads, and room for defensible space.
5. Look for a woodlot and south-facing ground: a renewable heat source plus solar gain and garden exposure.
6. Confirm what you're actually buying: mineral and water rights, nearby high-capacity wells or CAFOs, mining proposals, pipeline easements (Line 5 in MI and WI), zoning and shoreland rules, and reservation or public-land boundaries.
7. Think about community: a functioning small town, hospital access, and neighbors who farm are survivability assets too.

This is an educational planning aid, not financial, legal or real-estate advice.