People did prefer living in colder areas before AC.
replyThe arrival of AC meant there was suddenly a lot of very cheap land around cities that are extremely unpleasant without AC. This resulted in migration and a housing boom which drives up the economy attracting more people.
Sure enough, Wikipedia says the population in 1940 was only 65k (which is still too many, but whatever). I would still assume that AC installation was very uneven and a luxury at the time.
replyI would guess that swamp coolers were fairly common.
replySuburbia requires land and desert land is very cheap when market-priced, so long as the true costs of drinking and lawn grass watering for the land are externalized. Unfortunately, that leaves the region exposed to the Colorado watershed collapse and associated “which metropolis gets the axe” politics:
replyAmerica’s desert metropolis Is on the short list to lose water (6 hours ago) https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/23/us/arizona-canals-colorad...
(I suspect the interstate highway system also contributed to migrations, but haven’t done the research.)
Large silver and turquoise mines, basically.
replyCheap land
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