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?
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Phoenix began as a farming and mining community, but it grew on the strength of industrial development during and after World War II. Albuquerque is primarily industrial thanks to a neighboring military base, with military development providing the same sort of seed. Vegas was a mix of industrial development (also thanks to the Air Force), proximity to the Hoover Dam, and legalized gambling in Nevada (which helped it become an entertainment hub).
In more modern times: land. Those areas (well, Vegas and Phoenix; Albequerque less so) have vast tracts of open, unused land around them that allows those cities to grow and expand very cheaply, unlike cities near the coast (particularly cities on the *west* coast, which are all surrounded by mountainous areas). That results in a low cost of living and doing business, which attracts businesses fleeing higher cost of living in coastal cities like New York or San Francisco.
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