I have lived in one area of that open space, and there is a reason the population is so low. The climate can be very unhospitable in a lot of places. I called Southeast New Mexico home for a few years. Unless you have a means to get water, forget it. It only rains nine inches per year and you don't want to be there those two days. I'll stay here in rural East Tennessee, thank you.
I once read of a study done in the 1990s concerning Phoenix, Arizona and it was postuated that if not for air conditioning, the Phoenix population would be less than 500,000.
My family lived in Phoenix before the days of air conditioning. People who had to stay there for the summer slept on their porches, surrounded by wet bedsheets. Even a 100+ degree temperature can be remarkably comfortable after dark in the bone-dry desert, if you have evaporative cooling and a pool.
Often, the wife and kids were sent to San Diego or to a cabin in the high northern part of the state for the summer, while the men remained in town to tend to business and joined their families on weekends. A few hardy prostitutes did a roaring business during the week.
-ccm