onEarth, independent publication of the National Resources Defense Council

When I traded New York City for Tempe, Arizona, in August 2001, I thought I was moving to a quiet desert town for graduate school. But Arizona State University, sitting in this suburb of Phoenix, was exploding in a maze of shimmering, freshly paved highways, heavily watered lawns struggling to stay green under the hot sun, and new buildings annexing desert land at a pace and on a scale I couldn't have imagined.

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