Las Vegas may be the most thoroughly American city. No other town has been so shaped by the singular desire to make a buck. Churches and strip clubs coexist in close proximity. Each competes for the hard luck — but not broke — gamblers seeking refuge from their losses. If Capitalism works, it works in Vegas.
Vegas is America’s liver. The worst of pop culture eventually finds a home someplace in Las Vegas or the surrounding Clark County. Good taste, if you wish to employ it, is imported from out of town. Some of the swankiest hotels and casinos host celbrity chefs or big name shows. Even those, however, are somehow reinterpreted in their most excessive forms.
Vegas looks like a construction site that was never cleaned up, and in many ways it is. Clark County, the home to the city of Las Vegas, grew by 85% between the 1990 and 2000 census counts, compared to 13% percent nationwide. The county, who’s only city is Las Vegas, accounts for over two thirds of the state’s population with 1.38 million people. Of course, more census facts are available online.
Of course numbers hardly tell a story. Follow these links to other sections for more: