Learning from the Las Vegas Recovery

The Economist reports on the economic recovery, as exemplified by the city of Las Vegas. To introduce the subject, the article first describes the "Ascaya" project, carved into a mountain ten miles to the southeast of the Las Vegas Strip:

"For five years the project appeared doomed to become a monument, carved into rock, to an unsustainable housing boom. Now however, construction has restarted—not just on this site, but on several hundred others at the city’s edge. House prices, like employment, visitor numbers and gambling revenues, are creeping up again. Las Vegas’s economy is recovering—fitfully, but in a way that is more sustainable than its previous boom was. The city, unique though it is, is an exaggerated microcosm of America at large."  

The article goes on to detail the city's fall during the recession, before diving into the city's new economy. Examples of the city's newly diversified economy include the arrival of the company Switch, "a secretive firm which manages data for thousands of America’s biggest companies" that also has nothing at all to do with the gaming industry or the development of sprawling master planned communities. The article also notes changes in the gaming industry, which is building new products with less focus on gambling to attract younger crowds and more people who don't like to gamble.

Finally, the article notes that the city's recovery, like the country's recovery, has first benefitted the wealthy. The article returns to Ascaya to prove that point: "The new houses being built, such as those at Ascaya, are mostly targeted at the wealthy; many of the poor still remain underwater."