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

Author	Hal Rothman
Format	Paperback
ISBN	9780415926133
Publisher	Routledge Member of the Taylor and Francis Group
Manufacturer	Routledge Member Of The Taylor And Francis Group

Las Vegas is a city that has adapted to changing times. It started off as a place where people could gamble and have fun, but it has since become a city that exports services such as gambling, hotels, and gaming. Hal Rothman argues that Las Vegas is the quintessential city of the future and that it has shown incredible economic resilience and adaptability.

Praise for the Previous Edition (0 415 92612 2):
"...lively and provocative...this book will teach you something startling on nearly every page..."
--The New York Times Book Review

Like the Emerald City, Las Vegas glitters brightly in the vast Nevada desert, a haven for refugees from ordinary America. A hip, iconic, playground that exports nothing, it nonetheless earns billions from consumer services alone -- gambling, hotels, gaming, and entertainment. It is, historian Hal Rothman argues, the quintessential city of the future.
As other cities try to mirror its success and huge, respectable corporations like Coca-Cola invest in a piece of the pie, the very traits that have ostracized Las Vegas in the past -- hedonism, money worship, and permissiveness -- have today made it America's fastest growing urban center. From the gambling-driven, mob-run Sin City of the 1940s to the corporatization of the Strip as a respectable family entertainment center after the 1970s, Las Vegas has shown incredible economic resilience and adaptability.
The first full account of America's new dream capital, Neon Metropolis brilliantly shows how Las Vegas gambled on the post-industrial service economy well before the rest of the country knew it was coming, and won.