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OK Guys...a number of us have been complaining about the newby who jumps in with romantic notions of moving to Las Vegas and making a lot of money and living well in our wonderful climate.
The though is that we have a sticky up front. If that can't be worked I will put up some sort of page or pages on one of my sites that can cover the subject.
So lets us start with the basics.
Preamble
Las Vegas is a modern southwestern American City. It does not forgive fools. It is very much like moving to any other city. If you do not do a proper job of preparing you will likely be very unhappy. The streets are not paved with gold and jobs do not grow on our palm trees.
On the other side it is an open community friendly to the newly arrived. Jobs are available, particularly in the service industry. We are a blue color town. If you are a upper level manager of the corporate sort you may well find Las Vegas an unhappy place. If however you like to work hard and build your way up you may find this to be your place. We welcome entreprenaurs and treat them very well. And we spit out those that fail just like any good American City.
Before you come to Vegas you need...
1. Some money. At least enough to continue paying for a place to sleep and enough to eat for 3 months. Better to have a little more than that.
2. You need an automobile unless you are an unusual person. This is a southwestern city. It does not cater to people who ride bikes or want public transit. It can be done but you need to be dedicated to pull it off.
3. You need a local address and phone number. The whole town is suspicious of "foreigners" which is anyone who does not live in Clark County (well a limited exemption for those in Nye or Lincoln). Comes from the local propensity to declare folk local or tourist. You never trust a tourist.
4. If you qualify for a higher level job don't come here until you have it. The high level jobs are filled with national searches. If you did not come up when you lived in Muncie why would you come up when you live in Vegas?
5. Las Vegas does not care what you were paid in San Francisco or Seattle. You are no longer in San Francisco or Seattle. Click your heels to go home or understand you get what the job pays in Las Vegas.
6. When you get here get a job. Anything that is suited to keep your cash flow up and the eviction away. Then work for that dream job. Yes you may well have what it takes to prance in the chorus line, or pour at Pure or manage Echelon. But get yourself fed first.
This probably needs more categories and more input but that is the start. I will manage this if everybody wants to help.
When we have something that does not annoy a large portion of the viewers we will ask city data to sticky it. If the won't I will find it a fancy home and we can point to it.
should we even try to address the neighborhood thing?...you know, the what zips are best, where should i live q's. be nice not to have the same threads in this area too, but it is kind of a subjective topic so it doesn't lend itself well general classification. maybe a quick list of pros and cons from the residents of the area (i.e proximity too this/that, far from this or that, schools?, family oriented vs single life, etc.). again, might be a big ole can of worms, but might help point people in a particular direction and keep down some of the same questions.
7. Whatever preconceived notions you have about Las Vegas that you got from friends, movies, books, and TV shows...forget them. It is a regular city that just happens to have as it's main industry the entertaining of tourists.
8. This one is particularly true if you are an attractive female. If you were not in show business before you got here, that slick talkin' dude you met at the bar cannot get you into show business. He only wants to take advantage of you. If you were in show business before you got here he still wants to take advantage of you. Get an agent. And if you really believe he has "points" in any casinos I have some swamp land in Florida I'd like to sell you cheap.
OK Guys...a number of us have been complaining about the newby who jumps in with romantic notions of moving to Las Vegas and making a lot of money and living well in our wonderful climate.
The though is that we have a sticky up front. If that can't be worked I will put up some sort of page or pages on one of my sites that can cover the subject.
So lets us start with the basics.
Preamble
Las Vegas is a modern southwestern American City. It does not forgive fools. It is very much like moving to any other city. If you do not do a proper job of preparing you will likely be very unhappy. The streets are not paved with gold and jobs do not grow on our palm trees.
On the other side it is an open community friendly to the newly arrived. Jobs are available, particularly in the service industry. We are a blue color town. If you are a upper level manager of the corporate sort you may well find Las Vegas an unhappy place. If however you like to work hard and build your way up you may find this to be your place. We welcome entreprenaurs and treat them very well. And we spit out those that fail just like any good American City.
Before you come to Vegas you need...
1. Some money. At least enough to continue paying for a place to sleep and enough to eat for 3 months. Better to have a little more than that.
2. You need an automobile unless you are an unusual person. This is a southwestern city. It does not cater to people who ride bikes or want public transit. It can be done but you need to be dedicated to pull it off.
3. You need a local address and phone number. The whole town is suspicious of "foreigners" which is anyone who does not live in Clark County (well a limited exemption for those in Nye or Lincoln). Comes from the local propensity to declare folk local or tourist. You never trust a tourist.
4. If you qualify for a higher level job don't come here until you have it. The high level jobs are filled with national searches. If you did not come up when you lived in Muncie why would you come up when you live in Vegas?
5. Las Vegas does not care what you were paid in San Francisco or Seattle. You are no longer in San Francisco or Seattle. Click your heels to go home or understand you get what the job pays in Las Vegas.
6. When you get here get a job. Anything that is suited to keep your cash flow up and the eviction away. Then work for that dream job. Yes you may well have what it takes to prance in the chorus line, or pour at Pure or manage Echelon. But get yourself fed first.
This probably needs more categories and more input but that is the start. I will manage this if everybody wants to help.
When we have something that does not annoy a large portion of the viewers we will ask city data to sticky it. If the won't I will find it a fancy home and we can point to it.
Good one buddy
Major props.
Just to add on to number 2
Don't try to walk everywhere.It's a desert!Plus people drive 65 in a 45 zone meaning you have a chance of getting killed in a pedestrian accidnet.
Electricity is not cheap. The Hoover Dam, while a great national treasure, does not give us cheaper bills. Your bills will be sky high in the summer if you're wasteful and moderate the rest of the year. Search other posts for actual figures.
Water/Sewer/Trash is all one bill and around $30 from my understanding. North LV and Henderson may vary.
Cox is the local cable provider. They provide phone and internet as well.
See the NV DMV for an estimate on registering your vehicle here or cjski21 will put you away forever (my estimate was within $10, it works). You have 30 days to comply.
LV is #1 in car theft and we average more accidents than anywhere else in the country. Unless you were previously insured in Beirut your insurance will go up. I'd get a quote before fully committing to move. This could break your plans to move here by itself.
No state income taxes;
Yes on sales taxes, property taxes, and any other way a state recoups fees from having no state income taxes.
Apartments vary like anywhere else; olecapt put this together and I found it useful. Your results may vary.
Nellis AFB and surrounding areas are terrible. Imagine that, an area with jets screaming over it all the time is a bad place to live!!?!
We are surrounded by national parks and natural beauty, check it out sometime.
Coming up on 9 months of residence out here. I love it and hope to stay for awhile. Transplanted Floridiot, formerly stationed in Norfolk, VA. Two places that can fall off the earth for all I care.
Last edited by redwhale; 03-18-2008 at 05:41 AM..
Reason: added insurance
I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet but there is a SEARCH!!!!!! button.
If you have questions about a specific area/neighborhood/zip code/apartment complex/casino/business please use search first. It has probably been covered, pooped on by sheriff and made fun of by jfk.
But what about the children? If you value your children above all else, there may be other places for you. I'm not saying folks here with kids are negligent, but I've never seen a less friendly place to kids. I believe we are ranked 49th in education. Yes, somehow the great learning bastions Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, etc. can look down their noses at this state. If you don't want your children exposed to gambling, sexuality, smoke, alcohol, rough language, and degenerates you're going to have to find your own way.
Not all entertainment is inside casinos. There are movie theaters, museums, art galleries, and other venues outside of the strip and downtown. I'm not going to say whether they are any good, I don't know. I go to hockey and basketball games, movies, and bowl within the same casino and I must say the convenience of having everything I want all in the same complex is quite nice. The art displays in the casinos are beautiful, usually free, and a great way to spend an evening. Some feel the taint of being in a casino lessens and spoils the artwork, it's their opinion and one you'll form yourself.
Traffic; if you're from Cali you probably laugh at the complaints on this board about traffic and I don't blame you. In fact, if you're from any mid/major city you'd probably find it even, if not better than what you're used to. I've found that this city has gone through many growing pains and too many locals long for the days when this town was a tenth of what it is now.
This is probably the easiest big city/area I've ever had to navigate. There are plenty of alternate routes and roads you just learn to avoid at certain times of the day. If you know your North from your South and can find the Stratosphere, you can never get too lost. It's a pretty easy grid. Once you figure out that streets like Sahara, Flamingo, and Tropicana actually lead you to those casinos, getting around is quite easy.
Again, there is plenty of great and useful information on this board. Might I recommend the SEARCH!!!
button for your use.
Location: central, between Pepe's Tacos and Roberto's
2,086 posts, read 6,851,827 times
Reputation: 958
Quote:
Originally Posted by redwhale
But what about the children? If you value your children above all else, there may be other places for you. I'm not saying folks here with kids are negligent, but I've never seen a less friendly place to kids. I believe we are ranked 49th in education. Yes, somehow the great learning bastions Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, etc. can look down their noses at this state. If you don't want your children exposed to gambling, sexuality, smoke, alcohol, rough language, and degenerates you're going to have to find your own way.
I disagree with this and I find that this is one of the preconceived notions that does not exactly equal reality. I have an 8 year old son, his school is very good and I couldn't be more pleased. When you take state averages keep in mind you are averaging in kids from Elko, Fallon, Sandy Valley, etc., and does not necessarily reflect every school in every neighborhood in Vegas.
Also, unless you take your kids down to the strip daily than for the most part they will not be exposed to any of that type of thing, and that's not all that's down there either. I took my son down to Penske Wynn Ferrari about 2 months ago (he's a fan) to see the cars. When we finished up there we went through their shopping area, and finished up at the Fashion Show, eating sushi at Ra. Not once in our excursion did we encounter any outwardly intoxicated individuals, no hookers or even females wearing extremely slutty clothes, no dirty degenerate gambling bums panhandling for change, no massive gang fights or any gangsters or even folks that looked like gangsters. All in all it was a very pleasant day.
I appreciate your efforts and agree with most of your post, but this paragraph right here re-enforces some seriously negative stereotypes about Vegas that just aren't true.
I would add that the best advice for anyone wishing to move here is to visit here during the summer months and spend a few days in the heat to see if they would tolerate the same.
9 months here now and absolutely no regrets, by contrast my friends' back on the east coast are still having to deal with cold, wintry weather while I'm going to play golf today in shorts.
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