Processing Las Vegas

Two days ago, we returned from our trip.

To recap everything I did and learned, I would have to write the longest post in the world. But I've taken the time to think back on our visit and pick out some of the most important things that I'll be taking away from Las Vegas.

I had mentioned before how exciting of an opportunity it is to work in an up-and-coming city, as Las Vegas is just now hitting its stride as not only a tourist destination, but a place to live and work. Now that I've seen the city, I feel that more than ever. Yes, there are old buildings, long-standing businesses, et cetera, but most things there are recent, and there are gaps where nothing has been built or everything that has been built on the lot has been torn down. Developers, investors, city planners, architects, and of course the citizens themselves have an amazing opportunity to create a city in which anyone would want to live.

I believe the other most important thing I felt in Las Vegas is its tourism heritage. Obviously, a great deal of the city's money comes from the hospitality industry. But I suppose I expected people to be resentful of the hotels and casinos. In preparation for this trip, I had picked up Robert Venturi's Learning from Las Vegas, an architectural writing from the 1970s that discusses the unique architecture in the city. In this book, he urges the reader to set aside any preconceived notions about the rightness or wrongness, authenticity or disingenuousness, of the neon signs and huge casinos, and instead to interpret them for what they are. After visiting the city, I realized that this approach is exactly what the majority of citizens in Las Vegas do. Some of the people we talked to mentioned how much they loved the hospitality industry--in addition to providing their city with revenue, it makes it unique and creates a huge part of its culture. I absolutely love this approach. I am all for playing to the city's strengths and working with the existing social condition rather than against it to improve the quality of life for its citizens.

Naturally, I took some time on this trip to visit the hospitality industry--a nightclub on the strip, casinos on Fremont Street, restaurants downtown. I saw how very special the service workers are and how different the city is from anywhere else I have ever been. Of course, we cannot be oblivious to the fact that wealth inequality, high crime rates, and homelessness are problems in Las Vegas. But we can build and plan our way to addressing some of these problems using tourism to our advantage. And this is a challenge I look forward to taking on.