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> Cities grow around something.

Today that resource could just be "cheap land". We don't need coal or iron today, we need housing.

> very strong government incentives

Could "cheap housing" be such an incentive?

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Last I checked, those resources are water and roads (or promises of roads). But people can't live without water and don't keep building where they can't get it.

> We don't need coal or iron today

Yes, who uses steel anymore? /s

All of us, but the Swedish are doing it without using coal or other fossile fuels. [0] Iron's going to be a bit harder to remove from the process though ;)

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2021/08/19/how-swe...

You can have all the empty space you want to build on, but if it doesn't have water or electricity, it will continue to be empty. Modern societies rely on modern infrastructure.

Do you think someone building a new city will not connect it to the grid and think about the water?

They will certainly try, but if they pick the wrong spot it will be prohibitively expensive compared to other locations and so they will be more inclined to pick another location, and the market price of the land will price this all in

That's exactly the point. Where do you think water comes from? You can't just build a city in the middle of the desert. In order for it to be sustainable you need it located next to a lake or river or other large source of freshwater that's easily exploited. Water is a natural resource just like any other.

The reason that major cities are where they are is because either there's a ton of traffic that flows through the area OR because they were the highest, easiest point to build on near a major source of fresh water. So no, they're not going to just appear because you build a city there. That's not how cities or infrastructure work.

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