Wouldn't that be Alpaugh / Tulare Lake / Central Valley south of Fresno? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake and

Wouldn't that be Alpaugh / Tulare Lake / Central Valley south of Fresno? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake and of course the Netherlands... People may disagree with this but IMO Tulare Lake illustrates that it's not just "real estate" because plenty of real estate is basically worthless. In this case it's land with water which can grow things (same in Netherlands), and they made more of it by continuing to suck more water out of the lake than rainfall replenished.