Speaking for the US many populated arid areas are completely unsustainable as population centers (ironically also where most people in the US have been moving for awhile now), especially because water resources haven’t been managed rationally in many arid areas. This story will absolutely be a global one though, see Tehran for one massive example, Lake Mead for another. No water and deadly heat waves are going to make for limitless ghost town tourism attraction opportunities!
The future is bright for abandoned building photography communities!
I recently took a ‘no tolls’ route south through rural Oklahoma and Texas and saw many of these dead and dying small towns.
Many had a fat county sheriff hanging out to ticket people driving through.
It really is sad to see it. Those people are all now living in suburbs and slowly being driven out of their neighborhoods there by cost of living too.