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Title: Neon Metropolis: How Las Vegas Started the Twenty-First Century by Hal Rothman ISBN: 0-415-92612-2 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: 01 March, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $28.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.42 (12 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Neon Metropolis
Comment: 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.
Rating: 5
Summary: Under the skin of the city
Comment: 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.
Rating: 5
Summary: correction of stupid review
Comment: Boy, I'll tell you: there's nothing worse than a reviewer who either didn't read or can't understand a book. Neon Metroplis does not argue that Las Vegas is economically malleable at all. It says that Las Vegas thrives as a tourist town because the image it presents is malleable - that it can change to meet the trends. All you have to do is remember the so-called family era - with theme parks etc. - of a decade ago and look at the ads today: "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," to see that this is true.
Neon Metropolis also says that Las Vegas is the one horse in a one-horse state; as anyone who followed 2003's tax debacle in Nevada could see, this is ever more true.
Las Vegas' problems are real and Neon Metropolis is a lot more conversant with them than these two reviews suggest. This is by far the best book on Las Vegas.
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Title: The Grit Beneath the Glitter: Tales from the Real Las Vegas by Hal Rothman, Mike Davis, Hal K. Rothman ISBN: 0520225384 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 04 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Suburban Xanadu: The Casino Resort on the Las Vegas Strip and Beyond by David G. Schwartz ISBN: 0415935571 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: 01 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: Las Vegas Then & Now by Su Kim Chung ISBN: 1571458530 Publisher: Thunder Bay Press (CA) Pub. Date: 01 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.98 |
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Title: 24/7: Living It Up and Doubling Down in the New Las Vegas by Andres Martinez ISBN: 0440509092 Publisher: Dell Publishing Company Pub. Date: 07 November, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Last Honest Place in America: Paradise and Perdition in the New Las Vegas by Marc Cooper ISBN: 1560254904 Publisher: Nation Books Pub. Date: 10 May, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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