Why does the US have huge cities in the desert?

Question

Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Phoenix, etc. I can understand part of the appeal (like Las Vegas), and it’s not like people haven’t lived in desert cities for millenia, but looking at them from Google Earth, they’re absolutely massive and sprawling. How can these places be viable to live in and grow so huge? What’s so appealing to them?

In: 15164

Answer 1

Air conditioning. And in the case of Phoenix and Las Vegas, access to cheap power. Even Southern cities like Miami and Atlanta benefited from the proliferation of AC, and their population expanded rapidly in the least half of the 20th century.