Neon Metropolis: How Las Vegas Started the Twenty-first Century Book

Long America's capital for gambling and excess, Las Vegas has always stood outside the mainstream of American society since its beginnings as a mining town - until now. Neon Metropolis offers a panoramic and entertaining account of contemporary Las Vegas and its stunning transformation from a national pariah into a paradigm for the future of urban America.

Acclaimed historian and Vegas resident Hal Rothman combines a colorful history of the city's growth via gambling and crime - tackling Elvis, the Rat Pack, Howard Hughes, and an assortment of infamous gamblers - with a richly descriptive social portrait of contemporary Las Vegas. In the process, he shows how the city has shed its stigma as "Sin City" and is now setting the pace for nationwide trends in leisure, work, consumption, immigration, demographics, and urban growth. But Las Vegas' transition from isolated gambling outpost to its new status as "the first city of the twenty- first century" has not been without problems - rapid growth has been accompanied by sprawl, unending traffic jams, environmental problems, and an invasion by corporate interests. As Neon Metropolis powerfully demonstrates, the problems and opportunities facing Las Vegas are ones that, increasingly, confront all of America.