Micheal wrote:
You would be surprised how much popular support that idea has here. The resistance to it comes from the water interests in Southern California who realize that making a North, Middle, and South California would really screw over their ability to steal water from the top half of the State.
Which was kind of the point I was getting at. Perhaps stealing water (as opposed to buying it, which would involve market pressures) to artificially create farmland is less practical and more risky, since it's at the whims of something not beholden to market forces, than actually using farmland that's naturally suited for crop-growing.
Clearly, it wouldn't be very good for Southern California, but that's simply because it's always an uphill battle, resource-wise, to fight Mother Nature. It's a fight worth making if other areas also have to make it, or there aren't enough areas that naturally don't, but neither is the case here in America.