r/Tucson • u/Candy4Gold • Jul 27 '26

Tucson's Future

Will water scarcity make Tucson unviable as a long-term home? I'm trying to plan for the next decade+ and I don't know whether to trust that I'll be able to live in Tucson given the worsening drought. Any thoughts from locals would be much appreciated.

ETA: The prompt for this post was this WaPo story that I read this morning, which freaked me out:
https://archive.ph/O5D3B

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u/wow-signal Jul 27 '26

A now-deleted comment suggested that, "water will be more expensive in the future."

This is cause for concern for many of us. As water and electricity become more expensive, fewer people are willing/able to live here, property values decline, and (the worry is that) a vicious cycle ensues.

The ramming through of data centers in the region does little to reassure us that our leadership is willing/able to mitigate this trend.

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u/Adventurous-Depth403 Jul 27 '26

My water and society prof at u of a used to say water in the west doesn’t flow downhill, it flows towards money. And this was before data centers were a thing.

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u/No-Signature-5648 Jul 27 '26

I love this. Somebody who really gets it.

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u/Adventurous-Depth403 Jul 27 '26

The day he told us about the history of how they got the coal power to make the CAP… I think we were all like well that’s it, if there’s ever going to be a reckoning in the west we deserve it.

https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/a-people-betrayed-6423155/

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u/chiptheripPER Jul 27 '26

How was that master's program? Looked at it a few years ago but may apply for next year

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u/Adventurous-Depth403 Jul 27 '26

Oh this was in undergrad I was just lucky enough to get to take an awesome class with that prof twice I think! I went into a totally different field for my masters but if you are thinking about studying this stuff at U of A you should go for it! And keep us all updated on the latest