There was a YouTube video that questioned siting green city projects in the desert because there’s no water and you’d need air conditioning.
But, like, deserts are a longstanding attractor for ecology-minded people. Aridity means the air has a very low heat capacity, so you can control temperatures very easily. It has little cloud cover, so all forms of solar energy work exceptionally well. Hot deserts allow multiple harvests, so conservation-minded agriculture can produce a lot more. They’re also more free of many plant diseases and pests, which makes that even easier. And the lack of rain and airborne moisture means less damage to everything.
It’s just actually a really good place to do it, provided you can get the small amount of water you need for actual use. That’s why old earthship houses and communes are so common there!
