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)
as a noted golf hater, it pains me to admit that most dry places have converted their golf course watering to be done with gray-water treated wastewater rather than freshwater and they no longer represent the huge waste of water resources they used to
