Las Vegas Glitz Dulled By Growing Pains

As the city opens the world's most expensive casino, residents worry about lack of housing, bad traffic, smog, and crime.

1 minute read

April 29, 2005, 7:00 AM PDT

By Chris Steins @planetizen

After 17 years of "incessant construction, Mr. Wynn opens a new casino, once again the most expensive in the world, at $2.7 billion. Local officials embrace the mirror-skinned leviathan with its lake and golf course as a symbol that world demand for the city's ever-morphing formula of gambling, restaurants, and entertainment spectacles seems boundless.

...Many who live in America's fastest-growing city say the soaring billions in wealth generated by Vegas as an international destination for world travelers has not trickled far beyond casino floors. Likewise, many who study the effects of rapid growth - the city had just 5,100 residents the year before the state legalized gambling in 1931 - say the traffic congestion, smog, crime, and insufficient social services show little sign of improving."

Thanks to Chris Steins

FULL STORY: Las Vegas glitz dulled by growing pains

Thursday, April 28, 2005 in The Christian Science Monitor

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