In Vegas, a new start
They arrive from every hapless corner of the country, often with nothing but a few dollars and a dream for a better life--in a place where the past doesn't matter and a prosperous future is just a lucky break away.
A century ago, the place to fulfill that utterly American dream was New York City. Fifty years ago, it was California. But today, the beacon for tens of thousands of Americans seeking to reinvent their lives is Las Vegas.
Seekers. Thanks to a robust economy that services more than 30 million visitors a year, most anyone can start over in America's gambling mecca. "It's just about the last place . . . where you can arrive at the bus station with a suitcase and $300 in your pocket, rent a $25-a-night room, and, by the end of the week, have a decent-paying job as a waiter or a maid," says Marc Cooper, author of The Last Honest Place in America: Paradise and Perdition in the New Las Vegas .
The city's 4.4 percent unemployment rate now lures upwards of 6,000 newcomers each month. They are Los Angeles truck drivers fed up with California real-estate prices, Mexican immigrants looking for a foothold, education grads seeking a first job.
That Las Vegas increasingly draws seekers of a normal, middle-class life is an ironic shift from the city's early days, when it attracted misfits, gangsters and gamblers seeking refuge from the American mainstream. Indeed, "Sin City" was settled by Mormons, who came to Las Vegas to mine lead for the bullets they thought they would need to fight the U.S. government. Silver miners followed. And in the 1940s, Las Vegas became a refuge for gangsters like Bugsy Siegel and Mo Dalitz, a Clevelander who reinvented himself as a hotelier, sold his Desert Inn to Howard Hughes, and used the proceeds to become the city's leading benefactor.
Of course, for every Mo Dalitz there are thousands of others who never hit the jackpot. Despite the hopeful job picture, the city's suicide and divorce rates are among the nation's highest. And, with real-estate prices now surging beyond the reach of many, Las Vegas recently ranked ahead of New York in a list of America's most stressful cities.
Yet successful makeovers continue to fuel the collective culture. Today, a mere 6 percent of Clark County's residents are natives, the lowest proportion in the nation. And the county is abuzz with construction. From the city's famous strip to suburbs that have turned nearly 200 square miles of desert to asphalt, Las Vegas and its remade residents have literally left their history in the dust. -Alex Markels
This story appears in the June 28, 2004 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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