Why was Broken Hills abandoned?

[ElloinmorninJ]

Broken Hills in Fallout 2 was either destroyed in a race war, or abandoned after the uranium mine ran dry. My question is, why?

Broken Hills had farms. Broken Hills had Brahmin. Broken Hills had caravans. Broken Hills had a bunch of high-tech devices and stuff. Broken Hills had a goddamn mine. For christsakes, why would they leave such a place?

If the Uranium ran-dry, they could’ve just used their super-strong mutant inhabitants to mine something. In the region Broken Hills is there’s copper and silver and even gold.

Thinking about it, they didn’t even really need to mine anything. They seemed self-sufficient. Food, water, etc. So, why was Broken Hills he abandoned? Never made sense to me.

 

[Atomic Postman]

Broken Hills was surrounded by nearby towns and settlements that were much more booming and relevant. Vault City, New Reno, Sac-Town, Redding and Shady Sands. In the years after Fallout 2 with the expansion of NCR, I'm sure it became pretty clear that these cities were only on the way up. Whereas Broken Hills was only going to stagnate at best, and decay into nothing at worst. If I'm going to be tilling the soil in a Nevada bumtown, I'd rather do it in one that has a thriving caravan trade like Sac-Town or state-of-the-art medical technology like Vault City, rather than Broken Hills which had no real prospects since the Uranium dried up.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

Broken Hills didn't have farms and water because it was a super fertile or super water filled area: there are plenty of spots around the world that are reasonably fertile if you put in enough work farming or have a reasonable enough amount of water if you sink a well deep enough. Across most of the Wasteland, those reasonable enough spots either aren't settled because it's not worth putting in that level of work, or are only inhabited by a few people because there's just not enough motive for a lot of people to move to only reasonably fertile areas.

It only economically made sense to farm Broken Hills because the uranium mine meant there were a lot of people there.

Now, when we say that Broken Hills was "abandoned" - there in all likelihood are still a few hanger ons these two generations hence, especially considering how long lived ghouls and suer mutants are. Afterall, people still live in ghost towns like Centralia. But it would be for all intents and purposes abandoned.

 

[ElloinmorninJ]

Broken Hills was surrounded by nearby towns and settlements that were much more booming and relevant. Vault City, New Reno, Sac-Town, Redding and Shady Sands. In the years after Fallout 2 with the expansion of NCR, I'm sure it became pretty clear that these cities were only on the way up. Whereas Broken Hills was only going to stagnate at best, and decay into nothing at worst. If I'm going to be tilling the soil in a Nevada bumtown, I'd rather do it in one that has a thriving caravan trade like Sac-Town or state-of-the-art medical technology like Vault City, rather than Broken Hills which had no real prospects since the Uranium dried up.

That’s the thing. Nevada has a lot of ore. Either mine something else or find more uranium

 

[Hardboiled Android]

That’s the thing. Nevada has a lot of ore. Either mine something else or find more uranium

And perhaps they did - in another mining town. But it's just not so simple as digging deeper, deposits and veins run dry and mining towns die every year, if not every month.