It might not technically be a desert, but saying it's "far from" is incorrect too. Semi-arid climate zones are as close to deserts as you can be without actually being a desert. For recreational purposes in particular, people tend to look mostly for open water or mountains, sometimes forests or canyons. Miles and miles of "scrubby prairie" lacking any of those might as well be a desert.
Deserts in the US are not the Sahara - they are large, flat open spaces of hard ground and sagebrush. I'm sure there are still challenges, but if you are envisioning sand dunes to all horizons, that isn't what our deserts look like.
The definition of "desert" only refers to precipitation amounts, not aridity. Water is still available via lakes, reservoirs, rivers, springs, groundwater, etc.
Have you ever been to a desert? Some deserts are incredibly filled with life and diversity. It's no forest or prairie, but life finds a way. Desert by definition is someplace that gets little rainfall and lacks as much vegetation as other areas.
I have lived near deserts/semi-deserts, they are desolate and miserable places where some life survives despite all odds. Keeping a small number of national parks as deserts is of course important, but that does not need to be more than 1% of the area that is taken by deserts today.
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