Both started out with a small amount of water – neither exactly have the Mississippi flowing past, but Phoenix had the Girls river, and Vegas had springs that provided enough water to sustain small settlements.
Those settlements didn’t really offer a huge amount on their own, but they do provide support and stopping points for travel routes and hubs for the industries nearby like silver mining in the Phoenix area.
Back in the day this left them fairly limited – no big employers to cause a population boom, pretty inhospitable weather, and limited resources.
Skip forwards to today and we now have the ability to bring in water over long distances to support them, air conditioning to make the heat livable (and enjoyable to many now that you can easily escape it when necessary), and industries like gambling, tech and other non-physical industries that have provided work.
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