That doesn't explain why suburban lawns are needed in an arid climate. At least alfalfa is a product. When you water a lawn with potable water you are flat out

That doesn't explain why suburban lawns are needed in an arid climate. At least alfalfa is a product. When you water a lawn with potable water you are flat out wasting it. When you water a crop you are using it. Now, over-farming or farming the wrong crops isn't right either, but if you cancelled all the ag, every different crop and replaced it with houses, guess what - still a drought. That's why I used carrots in my comment. In the area where we experienced this, they over-built and also somewhat over-farmed. Ran out of ground water. Create water board which decided that the carrot farmers who had been there 100 years were 2nd in line for the water under their own land, which they both had legal title to and state constitutional rights to, and took it from them. They ran them out of town because it became uneconomical. Then the developers (who also ran the water board) bought the now-cheaper land and put houses there. Guess what, 20 years later - still not enough ground water. Still a bunch of suburban nimbys watering their lawns, just a lot more of them now. Guess why we import carrots from mexico now.