The Bust Belt

"Tucked in a desert valley 100 miles southwest of Las Vegas, the town of Kingman, Arizona has persisted for over a century, first as little more than a railroad siding, then a Route 66 fill-up point, enjoying its quiet, arid life with dignity.

In recent decades, its 28,000 residents have watched nearby Sin City transform from a gambling oasis into a sprawling desert metropolis of two million people, a crowd rapidly butting up against the area's geographic limits and water supply. All the while, Kingman persisted in isolation, due to the intervening desert and the winding, two-lane bottleneck of highway 93 as it crosses the Colorado River at Hoover Dam.

Now that's all going to change."

Thanks to Jillian Bandes