Neon Metropolis: How Las Vegas Started the Twenty-First Century

Although the author covers the history of Las Vegas, this book is mainly about its current growing pains. The county's rapid growth has made it impossible for schools and other institutions to keep pace with population, and the social fabric of Las Vegas is frail because so many residents are recent arrivals. Regional planning is a joke because the local government is under the thumb of developers, and no one in government wants to do anything that would raise taxes or raise housing costs. The end result is a place where even a hotel chambermaid can enjoy a pleasant middle-class lifestyle. Rothman, a history professor at UNLV, spices his book with first-person stories, such as how a friendship with a family on the other side of I-15 gradually fell apart as the driving time to visit them became longer and longer. This is a far superior book than Rothman's "The Grit Beneath the Glitter," which was a collection of essays. However, the flaw of both books is Rothman's over-the-top praise of organized labor. Granted, unions have provided many Vegas workers with a high standard of living, but it's really hard to believe (as Rothman claims) that employers are grateful to be unionized and grateful for the rule that the union - not the employer - chooses whom to hire. I was surprised that another reviewer criticized Rothman for being an overly optimistic booster, because I thought the tone of the book was rather negative. When I've visited Las Vegas, I've always thought it would be an awful place to live, and Rothman's book confirms my impression. (Of course, Las Vegas residents probably think I'm nuts for living in Saskatchewan.) This would be an excellent book for any tourist who has a serious interest in what happens beyond the strip. Also, many of the pathologies of Las Vegas are coming soon to a city near you. One of the book's more memorable passages is that, based on demographic projections, the future consists of latino service employees waiting on cranky old white people, which is hardly healthy for the fabric of society.

Hal Rothman is an environmental historian, meaning he is obliged to take into account both the spatial and temporal context of his subject matter, a feat far beyond the skill set of most writers attempting to describe the circumstances of Las Vegas. The Strip channels so much money that it morphs into a new urban setting once a decade, and in the process distorts social boundaries almost beyond recognition. Traditional urbanists have had difficulty keeping up with the facelifts; only by dealing with both the surrounding geography and the underlying socioeconomic factors can you understand the enduring nature of the city. Las Vegas demands that you analyze everything from the evolution of local labor and tax laws, the water wars of the modern West, and the behaviors of civic leaders. Only Rothman's book has been able to provide a large enough frame through which we can understand both the history of Las Vegas and what it implies for the rest of America.This is not only the best book about Las Vegas, hands down, but an exemplary study of an American city.

First some disclosure - I am acquainted with Hal Rothman in a professional capacity and I saw a couple of chapters before publication.Neon Metropolis is the best book I've read that explains the city I've lived in for nearly 3 years. Sure, it's easy to be ironic about Las Vegas and offer postmodern gobbledygook about what the city means. There are dozens of third rate writers and poets making unoriginal observations about Sin City. Hal tells it like it is for the folks who live here - in and outside of the gambling industry.Rothman is rigorous in his academic asessment of the city, yet the book is highly readable in explaining why Las Vegas is so successful at convincing ordinary folks like me, that I deserve to be strolling the lobby of the Bellagio with a Cosmopolitan in hand, contemplating a meal at a restaurant equivalent to a weeks pay.This is the one book I'll be recommending to newcomers to the city to get a grip on Las Vegas.

An insightful work. Neon Metropolis is an essential antidote to the many critics who fly to Las Vegas for a quick visit, and leave with biases undisturbed and nothing useful to say. What sets Rothman apart? He combines academic investigation with close observation, over time, of how this resort town is turning into one of the most successful and popular cities in the United States. Key to the success of this book is the fact that Rothman lives in this city, where he teaches history at UNLV. He has lived in the brand new subdivisions which excite the derision of tourist-critics who cannot fathom that such planned communities could be anything other than hideously pathological. Rothman, on the other hand, has watched these communities grow with time. His children have played in the nascent sports leagues; he has ridden the mass transit; he has seen how people carve a real community to raise families - for two or three generations now - out of unconventional and even unlikely material. He has tracked political movements and talked to his neighbors at Starbucks. And while these communities may not be perfect - Rothman has an academic's balanced powers of evaluation - they do work. This information is of wider interest as well; Rothman discusses the many ways that Las Vegas is a prototype in developing the emerging urban-suburban cities that we find across the nation.This book reveals an intriguing urban landscape. We learn how the earlier Las Vegas of the Mob shaped not only its gambling economy, but created its hospitals, churches and other institutional urban infrastructure. We then learn how the Las Vegas of Wall Street (after Hilton, Holiday Inn and other corporations became the major stakeholders) built the foundations for the enormous growth in size, prestige and influence over the last twenty years.Along the way we see how the many threads of a real city - unions, immigrants, a strong middle-class economy, civic and business leaders, and the city's self-conceptions - have been woven together. Rothman helpfully compares Las Vegas to Detroit's growth along with another booming new industry earlier in the century.This book is a dose of well-researched reality which should be read by anyone concerned with the health and direction of American cities.

This is important because it talks about the rise of service unions. Here in Detroit, its easy to think that unions are losing ground, but this book shows that they're changing and gainign power. I never knew a union of women and Spanish people could be so influential.