[agreeableone]

HI, After moving from suburban Northern Virginia (20 miles west of DC) to Las Vegas, NV, I have been trying to acclimate by learning something about the place. Two weeks ago, with the opening of a new Water Park attraction that seems to be more for resident, "LOCALS," as they are called here, one helpful bright light came on.

Las Vegas is the Amusement Park for The World. The tourism board claims that 40 million tourists from all over the world will be visiting per year. Another new, expensive casino-hotel is going up, two ferris wheels will soon be on the strip, a new AAA baseball stadium is planned next to a casino a couple miles from the strip, and "Downtown Las Vegas" is undergoing changes every day as Zappos moves in and invests in the area. Things are looking good!

The difference between the Water Park and new enterent spots on The Strip and elsewhere needs to be understood. The forty million visitors population to the Amusement Park need to be served by the permanent working population whether they ever meet directly or not. The casino dealer and restaurant worker do interact directly, but teachers, hospital staffs, doctors, lawyers, resident entertainers, firefighters, and nearly everyone else in Las Vegas are here to take care of the Amusement Park and its transitory visitors.

While there are plenty of casinos and slot machines outside of the Strip they are not part of the Amusement Park, being primarily for the entertainment of those who service the latter.

Take away the Amusement Park and Las Vegas falls into decay and in a few years would be covered by sand like some old ghost down from the early mining days.

When this is understood, it is easier to understand the housing market, funding of education, employment,
police and fire protection, parks and recreation funding and road construction and maintenance. We need to visualize The Amusement Park for the World as the beautiful, gleaming castle on the hill surrounding by the villages of the realm where there live dukes, duchesses, princes and a millions of tradesmen, shopkeepers, and most of all - peasants. All dependent on the prospects of the grand realm, The Amusement Park for the World.

Only then is it possible to judge our housing, taxing, labor, education, health and and security. Those who own and control the castle will decide how much and what quality they need now, and in the future. For the most part, the expectations of the castle are low and ensure that most of us will receive a mediocre education and live in homes that could use improvement or that we can barely afford, given our wages.

For many this will be the best they can do, For some, life will truly be good. Some will be unhappy and stay while others will pick up leave. All based on how the Castle treats them.

[jaimilyn]

Otherwise known as a resort town...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resort_town

[ddrhazy]

It takes time to build casinos. The amount that are in Vegas now is not something that can be done in a day, a week or even a decade.

[MAXIALE02]

Agreeableone - I like that. When I describe my city, I'm going to start saying I live in an amusement park.

[irishspy]

Las Vegas is the Disneyland for adults. But first you have to keep in mind their are two Las Vegas one the tourist thing and second the residents 2 million of them who live normal lives. Just like in Orlando Fla and California people living around the real Disneyland live normal lives. Las Vegas is always re inventing it self and bringing in new attractions. The real problems which have to be fixed or controlled are

1. Transportation to LV (air line prices)
2. Taxi long hauling of tourist
3. Resort tack on fees and hidden charges at the hotels
4. Transportation system so tourist can move about the strip and DT without paying a arm and leg.
5. The cost of food and drinks on the strip which has been inflated
6. Improved customer service at most places (Disney) has this down pact.
7. Dealing with the homeless people who haunt the strip and DT begging

Here are a few things that might change LV in the next 5 years.

1. The old Encore site is bought by a Chinese co which plans to build a 87 acre gambling entertainment resort with all inclusive cost. The more foreign co that invest in LV the more change in doing business will be and everyone will not have their hand out expecting a tip for everything.
2. LV is now competing in a global market and you have to change to survive.
3. The inter structure of the education system has to change but that will take a generation or more to happen. Hopefully they the State is on the right path now.
4. Housing will be a challenge up and down but it is that way in most of the USA but putting your future in that like they did out here in 2007-2009 is not a sound thing.
5. Tapping into the 10 million person market LA is a must and the high speed train must be put in place.
6. Having Nevada become the solar power producer for the United States.

Many tourism area in the USA have realized they need more than that to survive. We do not live in the 1950 anymore where the country became mobile had the income for folks to travel. The water slide and park is a plus and the other things will be also but I serious doubt LV will fall on it's face after these things become a norm here they will just put in more new stuff to attract people. LV survived the recession and is rebounding lets hope some of the lessons learned are not forgotten and repeated again.

[Caltovegas]

veags should be about tourist but also on the outside the senior industry could be huge. It seems like seniors lvoe the local casino's and I guess many have some disposable income to hit the penny slots. Build some senior communities and have more transprtation options which would put more people to work. Then again that being said the wages would probably be low. So Neva mind..

[BBMW]

I was kind of thinking frat party to the world (and I mean that in a good way.)

[lvoc]

There are actually two intertwined businesses. The "Frat Party" and the Convention business. And they have separate and not always compatible requirements.

The education system shortfalls are not related to the entertainment industry. It is a regional bias. Effectively everybody in the south west states short changes education. I am skeptical it can be fixed though it can get a lot better if the economy takes off.

The high speed train makes sense only as part of a west wide network. For just Los Angeles a third and fourth lane on I15 would make more sense. We need surge capacity as much or more than simple rate increases. It is Friday night that needs a fix...not all week long. The train is not going to do that.

Maybe we will see some actual progress on diversification ala Zappos. Makes more sense than many things...we are not going high tech.

We are aq right to work state and all that...though I suspect the present population will change that quickly if it gets to be an issue. We actually gain little from the very libertarian employment system. No rational employer is going to come here looking for malleable labor. The unions are far too well established.

I think seniors make a fine opportunity for Las Vegas. They bring money, love the climate and provide another local industry in their care and feeding.

There are numerous things that could use a fix. I don't know that i would hold my breath for any of them. Ripping off the tourist a bit is how we make our nut.

Solar power could get to be an interesting possibility. I would think the most important thing is to develop a means to tax energy shipped from here. The combination of the dam and solar might well be very powerful. But we need a way to assure LA pays at least a small pittance for each kwhour shipped.

Note that solar is a very low labor industry. If you can't tax the output it may not be worth the trouble.

[BBMW]

If were turning this into an economic development thread, let's see...

LV needs to leverage its proximity to LA, its tax advantages, and to some extent, its iconic locations to pull some of the movie and TV business from LA. Conversely, it needs to see itself as more convenient thanoffshore locations.

LV, and the state of NV, need to use LVs convergence of transportation assets (RR, I15, McCarren) and build some new ones (Ivanpah cargo airport, a full length I11 from Reno/I80 to Phoenix) to build on the momentum it already has in the warehouse distribution business. This could also leverage into manufacturing.

And it can still work the gaming/tourist/convention/party business.

[Buzz123]

I hate to point this out to the O/P, but we didn't just drive up like you did. That ringing sound is coming from you slamming your car door when you got out. Las Vegas has been writing the textbooks on marketing a city since 1905. We already know about all those things you are just discovering. If we needed your advice we would have called you years ago. Maybe we should appoint you Governor or something.

It's the daily story, a million times over, especially from easterners (I was the same way in 1964) ...another newbie comes in, discovers there is gambling and entertainment going on here, and thinks he knows all the answers to the all the problems he thinks he perceives. Before you stumble onto this other discovery, let me go ahead and tell you that we also already know there is legalized prostitution in other counties in Nevada.

Sorry to be that rough, but all newbies think that the way they did it back in Podunk is the only way. Of course it takes them about two years or so to realize that Podunk ain't as successful as Las Vegas is, and has been, for many decades.

Before you continue making a fool of yourself, I suggest you read some of the many history books on Las Vegas, and get some "locals" experience under your belt. Then we'll talk.