You make excellent points. However as to rethinking having all the SW population, where would we go? A lot of the population in other areas than the SW (some of whom I've actually spoken to about this) detest the idea of having "a bunch of darn SWers--espec. those !@#$% Californians--dumped" on them. Heck, even when people are just idly talking about moving: another site I was on, somebody started a thread about "if you could move to anywhere in the U.S., where would it be"; somebody posted the reply of "Calif. if it weren't for the fire danger." Some guy posted "the probl. with Calif. is not the fire danger, it's all the darn weirdos who live there, they oughta be made to leave." I thought to myself, "Well now, settle down; maybe he's just kidding." So I replied back, "Well where do you think this old, 3rd-generation, native Californian, and all the other Californians should go? Could we move to your area, maybe?" And he replies back, "No! I'm thinking you all should go to Mexico or South America!"
So seriously, where are we--and other unwanted populations all over the world--supposed to go? Where? (Yeah, yeah, I know: some people just want us to not exist, period.)