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Cities are where they are because of actual reasons of geography, not just people plopping things down randomly on a map. You need to get stuff into them, stuff out of them, have the requisite power and water infrastructure to get to them (ESPECIALLY in California)... they aren't something you plop down randomly on a whim.
There are planned desert cities in Arabian peninsula. If land value in California grows because people value geographical proximity to San Francisco that much at some point it will outweigh costs of having to build infrastructure in the middle of the desert.