Thousands Will Live Here One Day (as Long as They Can Find Water)

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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/business/water-development-west.html

By Keith Schneider, The New York Times. 

Excerpt: ...The development, Teravalis, is expected to have 100,000 homes and 55 million square feet of commercial space. But to make it happen, the project’s developer, the Howard Hughes Corporation, will need to gain access to enough water for its projected 300,000 residents and 450,000 workers. Teravalis is seen by local and state leaders as a crowning achievement in a booming real estate market, but it also represents the intensifying challenge in Arizona and other fast-growing Southwestern states: to build huge mixed-use projects in an era of water scarcity. ...Persistent dry conditions are driving up the cost of water and prompting more resistance to new development. But the scarcity of water is also pushing developers to innovate with design and install expensive infrastructure to save fresh water and recycle more wastewater. ...In Arizona, groundwater levels are falling so fast that thousands of residential wells all over the state are going dry. In 2021, the Arizona Department of Water Resources halted new-home construction in Pinal County, south of Phoenix, because groundwater pumping exceeded the supply....

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