Pretty sure the "young country" stuff is part of a conscious ethnogenesis pitch from early in the 20th to get people to come farm the Prairies. And then it's a stylized fact nobody thinks about, because (as you point out), once you think about it, it makes no sense whatsoever.

Could do with a conscious act of ethnogenesis around deep chains of responsibility for the habitability and biological productivity of land. As someone who couldn't sell ice to Arizonans I am not the person to try, but I could wish for a directed effort.