Hopefully one day we will be advanced enough to start transforming the desert. It's not an easy task and I don't know enough about science or economics to say it's definitely feasible. It's just a hope.
And if people would hope for that then they would be willing to improve existing small towns too.
I don't like this trend that we all move to major cities and compete for scraps of lands and housing.
Moreso, the opportunities exist in the coasts as that's where the inertia of import/export of both goods and humans are.