Yes, building U.S. cities in hot deserts w/o water wasn’t a great move - but too few know that HEATING homes uses more energy than COOLING does.
Homes in Miami use less energy to control climate than homes in Minneapolis, but we don’t finger-wag about the foolishness of building in cold places.
"Phoenix has lower per capita carbon emissions than Boston" (almost entirely due to heating in Boston) is one of those factoids people get really mad at you if you tell them.
people also don't like hearing that Phoenix has been a continuously inhabited site of fixed agriculture and dense population for several thousands years and is not, in fact, a dumb or unsustainable place to build a city (though it is, in my opinion, unpleasantly hot)
water is a massive problem in arizona but it's almost all for cash-crop agriculture that gets exported out of state. the region has plentiful water to the support the actual human population and industrial uses.
IIRC it’s similar in Las Vegas/southern Nevada in general, the water use has actually decreased their use of the Colorado river while population has grown.
Not just per capita but in total.
(By doing things like getting rid of many lawns, which are stupid)
Las Vegas has gotten so good at water conservation the city is now a net *contributor* to the Colorado River, pumping less water out than they allow to run back in
