I am from Phoenix. If it weren’t for Saguaro Lake, Mesa would not be there. Nor would any of the crops planted in the area. Or any of the cattle that my friend’s family raises. Phoenix put a ban on installing grass with new construction (too many snowbirds) back in the 90’s because the average humidity had increased enough to jeopardize some of the crops.
This is a testimony as to what Saudi will need to do in order to support any resort city construction.
A lot of dumb@$$es insult a part of my heritage when they write off the Native Americans as a bunch of savages with little or no agricultural knowledge. Truth is that it was a relative handful of tribes (the Comanche and Aztec being two of the better examples) who prefered warfare and piracy to agriculture. The Sioux became that way only when driven from their Ohio Valley homeland in the mid-1400s in stages to what are now the Western Dakotas.