'Sin City' Blooms in the Desert

Nov. 10, 2004 -- -- Las Vegas was built on a bet. Half a century ago, when the first of the great casinos went up, there was no saying for sure that people would come to the desert in search of a big take.

It paid off, and in the last census, Las Vegas was the fastest-growing city in America. But to keep growing, it has had to gamble on a very different future.

"What you're seeing, really, is the pinnacle of a transformation that's been going on for 25 years," said Hal Rothman, a history professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who has written extensively about the city's development. "The Las Vegas of your parents is no longer here."

It is being replaced, step by outrageous step, with spectacular, luxurious developments that have less than ever to do with slot machines and blackjack. The latest, announced by the entertainment giant MGM Mirage, is a $4 billion city within a city, called "Project CityCenter" for the moment.

Like everything else on the strip, it will, of course, have gambling. But most of its 66 acres will be upscale condominiums and lavish shops.

"It would have been easy for us to take this land and build another casino-hotel," said Jim Murren, president of MGM Mirage. "It would have been successful too. But we have a civic and financial imperative to do something more important with this land. And what is more important is to help this valley evolve."

Scholars of urban planning say Las Vegas and surrounding Clark County are growing too quickly for their own good. In the 1990s, the metro area grew 85 percent; the population passed 1.5 million in 2002. People are moving there for reasons that have nothing to do with gambling. They come for the climate, the low taxes, and, above all, the sense of opportunity.

Not everyone is sure Las Vegas can accommodate their dreams: 55,000 are reported to have left in frustration last year.

So the city is diversifying. Bill Eadington, an economist at the University of Nevada in Reno, reports that among the larger properties on the Las Vegas Strip, gaming accounted for only 42 percent of revenue in 2003, down from 58 percent back in 1991.

"The most amazing thing," said UNLV's Rothman, "is that surveys of visitors to Las Vegas show that the No. 1 reason people come to Las Vegas is to shop. Not to gamble, but to shop."

MGM Mirage hopes to capitalize on that trend.

"What we want to create is an urban lifestyle center, a place where people walk into avenues and little streets; they're shopping all around, and people are living above the shops like they do in major cities," Murren said.

The city expects 37 million visitors this year. Las Vegas, the city that bloomed in the desert, is now branching out.