Water and Western Growth

Abstract

The West's population is growing at the same time that water supplies face continued and new stresses. Western states benefit both from the continued population shift toward the sunshine and mountains and from immigrants who fuel the country's absolute population growth. Contrary to any concerns about limited water supplies, people want to live in the West. It is beautiful; large parts of it enjoy mild or bearable winters; it offers a full range of “lifestyle” and outdoor recreation choices; and settlement is much less constrained than it was when the West was an eastern and European colony. The modern service economy, combined with extensive (and federally subsidized) highway, air route, and electronic infrastructures, facilitate a greater range of location choices for individuals and business than did the “old” cowboy-commodity production economy, which remains politically powerful but economically less important. Air conditioning has made year-round desert living feasible for many who otherwise would not bear the discomfort of the Southwest's summer.