First off, it&#x27;s simply not true in any practical sense that there are no areas of the US that are safe from environmental disasters.  The entire northeast and mid-Atlantic down through Appalachia - at the very least - is reasonably safe from natural disaster.<p>So justifying a decision to live somewhere that is highly prone to one or more types of disasters with a glib assertion that &quot;there really isn&#x27;t anywhere good to set up camp&quot; is not even wrong.<p>Second, I&#x27;m no historian, but I feel confident in asserting that for the entirety of history, a principal criteria for evaluating the suitability of an area for settlement is its proximity to fresh water.  This criteria was intentionally, brazenly ignored in building Las Vegas - as well as much (most?) of the Sun Belt southwest.<p>Third, your geoengineering &quot;solutions&quot; are not realistic.  Are you suggesting that we&#x27;re going to move flood waters from (to use your own example) the east coast to the west coast?  Or even from the Mississippi River to Las Vegas?  In a world where our existing infrastructure is drastically, if not catastrophically, underfunded?<p>Where are these areas of surplus fresh water of which you speak?  Lake Mead, Vegas&#x27;s primary source of water, is 80 feet below historical levels.  The rest of the Colorado River, serving seven states, is similarly depleted.  Aquifers throughout California are near tapped out.<p>The bottom line is that vast areas of arid land were foolishly (over)developed for the banal reason that somebody was able to make a buck on it.  People with money were able to buy government that allowed them to do what they wanted to make that buck.<p>I&#x27;m no doomsdayer, but the water wars have already begun, albeit at low intensity.  One day, the demand is going to outstrip the supply and it&#x27;s going to get very, very ugly, at least from a financial perspective, if not outright violence.