LIVING IN LAS VEGAS
JUNE 2011

By Chet Yarbrough
(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.com

Bright lights; big city describes today’s Las Vegas’ identity. Traveling far since 1905 when it became a town site, the City scene was set in 1906 with the opening of the Golden Gate Hotel and Casino (still operating on Main Street, off the “Fremont Experience” See video-http://youtu.be/XXG9ASe7HhI).

With the legalization of gambling in 1931, the future entertainment capital of the world was born; today we have Wynn, The Venetian, Paris, City Center, The Cosmopolitan, and more. Entrepreneurs that started those great projects are exemplified by dynamos like Steve and Charissa Davidovici and Corey Jenkins that started the Sugar Factory and the Chateau Nightclub in 2010 and 2011.

Chateau Night Club

Glitz and glamour are a spectacular part of Las Vegas but it is a small part of what makes this oasis in the desert a fascinating place to live.

You can love the outdoors; you can love hot days and cool nights; you can love the relative quiescence of nature and rarely venture into the 24-7 excitement of the City to be as happy here as anywhere you have lived.

Like living in or near New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Houston, New Orleans, Seattle, Portland etc. the City is an exciting and wonderful place to experience.  However you cannot enjoy all big cities have to offer, all the time. It is too consuming, too expensive, and too exhausting. Many people love the culture and entertainment of a big city but it is only a part of the way people live their lives.

In 25 minutes, a Las Vegan can escape summer’s heat by motoring to Mt. Charleston.  In an hour, the family can be boating on Lake Powell, near Boulder (Hoover) Dam in Boulder City. The spring and fall seasons are like living in Southern California without the threat of mudslides and storms.

Lake Powell @ Boulder (Hoover) Dam

Las Vegas is maturing. It is a toddling child in some big city’ amenities but it is growing into the diversity of big city life.  With new Hospitals (a VA hospital under construction), the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health(a Division of the Cleveland Health Clinic)

Cleveland Clinic-Lou Rouvo Center

and the construction of the Smith Center for Performing Arts, Las Vegas is learning how to walk.

Smith Center for the Performing Arts-Under Construction

It is hard times for big city newspapers but the quality of local and national news, with editorial coverage of conservative and liberal views, is better represented in Las Vegas by Stephens Media Group (publisher of the “Las Vegas Review Journal”) than many local papers in larger metropolitan areas.  Southwestern communities like Phoenix are only advertised and homogenized by their newspaper.

If Las Vegas is not your cup of tea today, keep an eye on what is happening because Las Vegas is working on becoming one of the best places in the world to live.