Las Vegas is a funny place to
find solutions to the woes of Western cities, but in southern
Nevada, the phenomenal growth of the last 20 years has spawned
innovative ways to solve the problems of Western cities.
Las Vegas has all the problems of a healthy economy — growth,
sprawl, air pollution, traffic congestion, changing demographics,
inadequate public financing and everything else you can imagine.
It’s true that the remarkable changes of the past
few years have transformed life in the Las Vegas Valley. The cost
of living is 14 percent higher than the national average. Housing
prices have risen in five years from the national norm to 38
percent above it. Homeownership has fallen below 60 percent,
underneath the national average, and household income actually fell
by $1,300 in the last 12 months, leaving Las Vegas below the
national average for the first time in recent history. It is easy
to think that the quality of life has gone to hell in a hand-basket
in a hurry.
The culprit, not surprisingly, is our
incredible growth. Since 1980, greater Las Vegas has quadrupled in
population. The boundaries extend further every day, and people
drive farther and longer in each succeeding year. The Las Vegas
Valley is addicted to growth. Paradoxically, while growth doesn’t
pay for itself, growth foots the bill for what does get paid for in
southern Nevada. Las Vegas has this wolf by the ears: It can’t hang
on and it can’t let go.
Solutions come slowly. One good
one is the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act of 1998, the
best arrangement any American community has ever secured to
mitigate the impact of federal action. It auctioned Bureau of
Management land rather than allowing its piecemeal disposal, and
targeted the proceeds for regional projects. Now, there’s
money for capital improvements, conservation initiatives,
development of parks, trails and natural areas in the county, and
acquiring environmentally sensitive lands.
Another is a
79-species habitat conservation plan for Clark County that compels
developers to pay a $550 per-acre development fee to maintain
habitat for endangered species such as the desert tortoise. This
creative usage of the Endangered Species Act was born of necessity,
but it has become a linchpin in the development of wilderness and
recreational space in southern Nevada. It also creates a
convergence between the environmental community and developers, and
nowhere else in the country has such a consensus been forged.
The world of water has changed and the Southern Nevada
Water Authority should get much of the credit. This authority
reinvented water in the Southwest, changing a nasty competitive
situation, the famed “whiskey’s for drinkin’,
water’s for fightin’ ” of legend, to a cooperative
model in which everyone sits at the table and people negotiate like
grownups. This ended such travesties as communities spilling water
into the streets to maintain their claim to their “share.”
Las Vegas also developed a stunningly effective
water-conservation program. Since 2003, the community has added
more than 150,000 people, yet in 2005, the Valley used 15 billion
gallons of water less than it did in 2003. Las Vegas has saved
one-sixth of Nevada’s annual share of the Colorado River
while adding a mid-sized city to its population. Can any other
Southwestern city match that accomplishment?
Clark County
has also built its own road, the 215 Beltway, around the city. When
faced with federal funding that guaranteed that the much-needed
artery would not be completed until 2020, county leaders acted. The
result is a nearly complete beltway, built mostly with local
moneys. Traffic congestion remains bad, but it would be a lot worse
without 215.
But this is only a start. Las Vegas’s
growth-inspired problems continue to be legion. Air quality looms
large. Even with the 215 Beltway, traffic congestion threatens to
clog movement, and some form of mass transit is essential. Even
more, emphasis on creating “live, work, play” communities needs to
begin in earnest. Decentralization is as clear in Las Vegas as
anywhere else, but converting to work situations that keep people
close to home has yet to occur.
It’s been 40 years since
the title of a book, Learning from Las Vegas, became a buzzword,
and that book was about architecture. Now, Western cities can learn
from southern Nevada’s successes and failures. It’s time the
region recognizes how much the future begins in Las Vegas.
Hal Rothman is a contributor to Writers on the
Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org).
He is the author of numerous books and a professor of history at
the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
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