From what I understood, it was an issue with moderation. I believe they said something about not having the resources to moderate all of these new people coming in, so they had to block the two instances where most of the problem people were coming from.
I live in the middle of the Mojave Desert, so I think it would depend on the time of year. There would be too many people fighting over what little water we have, and if it was in the middle of the summer, I don’t know that I would make it very long.