Arizona, where I live now, is a relatively new state and any of the people who lived here when it was ALL uninhabited or barely are pioneers to my mind. They certainly had to have coping skills. We had to learn them just to live here with reasonable comfort. Yes, it's possible.
We have mountains across the top third(?) of AZ, making for a fairly-near summer holiday getaway, and in the bottom south are our cooler climes than the central desert parch-ment, and yes I meant it is parching.
We (then-husband and I) came here one night (it was only 100 degrees) in August. We mourned for quite a while and then gradually became desert-dwellers. 40 years later, I'm still here in our house and my sons visit, rarely, trying only for winter. Husband has moved on to California (of course), but now CA is in trouble with weather for, I think, the region they're nestled in.
So It Goes! . . . .