Speaking for the US many populated arid areas are completely unsustainable as population centers (ironically also where most people in the US have been moving for awhile now), especially because water resources haven’t been managed rationally in many arid areas. This story will absolutely be a global one though, see Tehran for one massive example, Lake Mead for another. No water and deadly heat waves are going to make for limitless ghost town tourism attraction opportunities!
The future is bright for abandoned building photography communities!
The problem repeatedly seems to come down to a decision of “cost now, money saved later” versus “money saved now, much bigger cost later”.
The choice always seems to be the latter
I highly doubt in this scenario. Water is not that expensive even shipped, and you only have to ship in the losses. Building anything let alone a brand new city? Fucking insane. Think about every house, business, and industrial builiding. It’s unreal.
There won’t be an explicit decision to up and leave to create a new city, don’t get me wrong. What I expect is that these cities will continue to make the cheapest, politically convenient attempts at solving the issue which will only lead to it being more and more expensive to live there comfortably. People will naturally leave to other neighbouring cities or towns that are in less of a dire situation
Not right now but as it becomes scarce in the area, that cost will go up exponentially. As the cost rises, people who can’t afford it will start leaving - lowering the incentive to ship water out that way (a smaller market). That further pushes up the cost forcing more people to leave until it snowballs into a ghost city
No. Shit. Sherlock.
Do you understand that you recycle water? Set up the system like Vegas and your toilet flush today is your drinking water tomorrow. It doesn’t go poof into the ether JFC. That means you only have to ship in the losses JFC. Piping in water losses is fucking easyyyyyyy. Relocating millions of people is harrrrddd. JFC you people have no idea how things work. Water prices will go up yes, quite a lot when you consider it’s close to free right now. It’s not going to be a expontially increasing graph until the end of time like you’re talking. I’m gonna leave this conversation.