but I couldn’t stop myself.
You see I got an email the other day from someone I did not know (nothing new there right?). This one was a journalist requesting that I help him with an article he was writing. Typically I appreciate those requests, but this one was…well, here’s the whole text:
I’m writing for Las Vegas’s “Vegas Inc.” magazine. I’m hoping you can gaze into your crystal ball about 20+ years or more down the road and tell me what Las Vegans’ can expect in these specific areas:
– Growth/shifts in population.
– The local/regional economy and employment.
– The gaming industry.
– The restaurant industry.
– Healthcare.
– The upscale leisure/vacation industry (currently working hard to woo Chinese visitors and investment)
– Anything else you think interesting.
The editorial brain trust at the magazine is planning on making this a cover story with lots of splashy play, so please take a few moments today and let us know in writing what you see on the horizon. Have some fun with it. Thanks!!
H
Maybe it was the abrupt style. Starting off by asking me to gaze into my crystal ball never wins points with me. I take the work I do seriously. But I don’t think that it’s so precious that I need be paid for every thought. I understand that we live in a world where sharing ideas is an important currency. No, what really got me was the obvious fact that he clearly didn’t take the time to find out anything about me before making the ask. If he had he would have figured out I’m not the most likely candidate for the type of economic rah-rah he is looking for.
I know I should have just ignored it, but somehow I couldn’t. What follows are my thoughts on some possible futures for Las Vegas. I’m pretty certain you’ll never see them in “Vegas Inc.”
Las Where?
Dear H:
I want to thank you for the opportunity to “gaze into my crystal ball” and give away my insights into possible futures for Las Vegas so that you may write your article for Vegas Inc. Unfortunately, my crystal ball is currently being refurbished, but I will give it my best effort relying on the more mundane tools of forecasting.
So what might Las Vegas look like in 2040? Of course, for most people actually living in 2040, the more likely question might be Las Where? You see, the hedonistic temple to our conspicuous consumption culture has borne the brunt of the tidal wave of changes that have swept across the globe in the years between 2015 and 2040. No single event sealed the fate of the Silver City, but a series of blows left it looking a bit like Sodom and Gomorrah post smite.
For those profiting off the city’s current rebound, such a dire forecast seems utterly impossible to consider in 2015. Those same people will also be surprised to learn that by 2040 the “Great Recession of 2007” will have largely been forgotten, eclipsed by a wave of economic crises that make the bursting of an artificially created real estate bubble a tiny footnote in the history of economic calamity.
There was little time for such concerns in 2015, as local business leaders embarked on ambitious plans to entice the wave of high rollers born of the Chinese economic boom. Unfortunately, like so many great marketing plans, they came to this one about a decade late. After investing millions of dollars in new promotional efforts, the dream of Airbus A380s, festooned, somewhat ironically, with the bright red phoenix of Air China, filling the skies above the city turned out to be little more than another desert mirage. As the Chinese economy continued to tank Las Vegas was just one of many tourist destinations that saw their best short-sighted plans for the future evaporate.
The future wasn’t all bleak, at least for the short-term. Boomers continued to defy expectations, and good judgement, to flock to the casinos in search of the eternal fountain of youth. This kept the ATMs humming until the late 2020s when economic reality, and the drug companies, finally caught up with the denial generation. The pharmaceutical giants, unhampered by conscience or government regulation, saw their opportunity to plunder the boomer golden goose and stuck it to them. As the cost of health care, both real and imagined, skyrocketed, the boomers were forced to trade their weekends in the desert for the promise of eternal youth in a pill. Almost overnight the generation that had built the empire in the desert disappeared from its climate controlled bubble. Some of the lost revenue was replaced by the Bacchanalian orgies held by the drug companies at their members’ only resort, PharmaWorld (formerly the Wynn).
Still, there were busloads of Baptists and the occasional Muslim looking for a close brush with the world of sin to keep the city going. Or so everyone imagined until the new religious right targeted Las Vegas in a last gasp for relevance. The first quarter of the century had not been good to those who would impose their religious values on the larger culture. As they slipped completely from the national stage, the most dedicated crusaders turned their attention to smaller targets. What could be a better object of scorn than the city where sin was openly sold, especially now that her hookers were a mere shadow of their once youthful selves? Las Vegas had long ago perfected the art of ignoring its detractors but when busloads of emaciated protestors brought their “holy hunger strikes” to the Strip, there was a notable decline in patrons at the city’s legendary buffets.
Of course, a few starving fundamentalists couldn’t stop the action. As it turned out they were just the first in a Job-like flood of tribulations to be visited upon the Entertainment Capital of the World. The global legalization of online gambling combined with a younger generation that felt completely comfortable doing their sinning closer to home (and then sharing on Facebook), cut deeply into the traditional customer base. Attendance was hit even harder when the federal government finally imposed heavy carbon taxes in 2029. That action came much too late to help the environment, but it did cause a spike in the cost of travel.
Somewhat ironically, the power of the Internet, once used so effectively by the city’s massive promotion machine, also contributed to their demise. It began with a creative little video made by a couple of teenagers on their iPhone 14s. Grainy images (made possible by the phone’s advanced filter app) captured “deranged descendants” of atomic bomb fallout victims disemboweling innocent tourists on the city’s back streets. It’s doubtful that the young auteurs could have anticipated the reaction they got when they posted their opus online, but in this Internet age who’s to say what will capture the public’s imagination? A few million hits later and the young filmmakers were on their way to Project Greenlight while the Chamber of Commerce was flooded with emails from terrified vacationers wondering if they should cancel their hotel reservations.
That event paled in comparison to the intentional digital attacks launched by the First Nation Freedom Fighters. For nearly four years the group harassed the city’s most profitable casinos with denial of service attacks, and other more serious forms of cyber crime. They were ultimately apprehended in 2032, but only after costing the city’s businesses billions of dollars.
For all the slings and arrows thrown at the city by a capricious and seemingly crazed culture it was mother nature that would deliver the death knell. For anyone not completely lost in the haze of smoke and cheap cocktails this should not have come as a surprise. Las Vegas was named by the National Resources Defense Council as “one of five cities that climate change was going to make uninhabitable” way back in 2015. And even as Lake Mead became the Bath Tub Ring Desert, local businesses poured billions of gallons of water on artificial landscapes. Then again, how does one impose a culture of rational resource use on a place that was built on the principle of extravagant waste? Ultimately there was no way to reconcile a culture mired in 20th century fantasy with the reality of modern climate change. First, the manicured yards turned brown, then slowly, but surely the rest of the city began to crumble, fading away much like the boomers that had created this dream of limitless indulgence and excess.
Businessmen, and women, are among the most resilient creatures around but even the hardy crew that called Las Vegas their house knew when it was time to cash in their chips. Besides by 2040 the real money will be in seawater desalination, ocean front condos in Anaheim, and black market carbon offsets. While there is some dispute among historians most agree that it was December 26, 2036, when the last neon light on the strip flickered out and the city was abandoned.
The one surprising bright spot in this has been the continued growth of Low Vegas, anchored by the new open city built around Tony Hsieh’s projects. As the rest of the country faced similar economic, climate, and cultural disruptions this small area continued to attract the artistic and bohemian classes. By 2040, the population has expanded to nearly 50,000 and it is considered a world model for the emergence of a new form of communal economy. We can only imagine how this small oasis in the desert will continue to reinvent itself in the second half of the century. Who knows one day those neon lights might once again illuminate the desert nights, powered in the future no doubt by the abundant solar energy from the nearby Paiute Nation’s solar farms.
The End
Mr. Riel,
I do hope you find this article helpful. I can’t wait to see the “splashy cover that the editorial braintrust has planned” for the issue. I’m sure you have accomplished photo editors to help find that perfect image but in the vein of giving it all away I have attached an image that I find inspiring.
In return for this effort, I would like to ask you a couple of favors. I would, of course, expect to receive a copy of the issue with the article to add to my collection of work for free. It would also be awesome if you could send along some Las Vegas kitsch. An ashtray (do they still make those?) emblazoned with the city’s name would be perfect. I’m creating a collection of artifacts for my grandchildren that will help capture memories of those places they will never see.
Oh yes, one last thing. If for some reason this prediction is not what you had in mind, no worries. I’m sure you can find plenty of other “futurists” out there willing to deliver the type of vacuous economic rah-rah that keeps publications like yours alive and contributes to the short-term thinking that is making all of our futures less certain.
Sincerely,
Joe Tankersley