Sadly, "settled on an enormous body of water and fitted with world-class desalination plants" is a poor model for a potential Martian city. :)

speaking of the desert, anyone know how dubai has managed water access through all this growth?

i know many countries in the region (namely kuwait and saudi) utilize desalinization on a large scale, though i’ve heard it's only economically viable where oil is extremely cheap and abundant, which (as far as i know) is not the case in dubai..

seems like the environment would lend itself well to nuclear (a lot of barren, uninhabited, seemingly geologically stable, space), which i'd imagine could fuel desalinization plants just fine.

They desalinate like there's no tomorrow. Like so many other things there, it's insanely expensive, but they do it anyway.

UAE is also enroute to building its first nuclear power plant, but it's not what's powering desalination at this point.

I've been told they ship a lot of water in.