"The West was settled without logic. People settled where they wanted to settle, with no regard whatsoever to the ecological consequences or the ability of the land to support them. Los Angeles is probably the preternatural example of a place being where it has no business being. There's absolutely nothing in the immediate environs to support it, but people wanted to live in Los Angeles. And they depleted the groundwater in Los Angeles over several decades, to the point where they had to go elsewhere for water in order to continue supporting the city that had no business being where it was."