Geoff Schumacher

Although this is a fairly concise work on the rise of Las Vegas from outpost to destination, it suffers from three problems. First, it is written in a fairly dry journalistic style. The fact based style is good for an educational tome, but too dry for casual reading. Secondly it is not as well reserched or edited as an "essential" book should be. A mistake in crediting J. W. Marriott in building a resort in Summerlin (it was orginally built by Regent Hotels and sold to the Marriott corporation), makes me distrust some of the other attributions in the book. There are also some mistakes in the prices for the sales of BLM land. But thirdly, it was written in 2003, at a time when Las Vegas was still booming. It is optimistic about the monorail, now seen as a tremendous public boondoggle that serves fewer riders every month. The author seemed to think that the building boom would never end, when there were already indications of the limits to boom building in Florida. In all the dismay about the price of housing in Las Vegas becoming less affordable, never did he mention the fact that investor flipping had a lot to do with the rise in prices. And when the investors started loosing money that there would be a lot of empty ghost towns in formally hot neighborhoods. It does give a good overview of the growth of Henderson and North Las Vegas, but overall was disappointing.… (meer)