Why Las Vegas is (Probably) Not the Next Detroit

Photo credit: chepenicoli

A recent post at MarketWatch suggests that Las Vegas could be on its way to becoming the next Detroit, a metropolitan mire populated mostly by those who can't afford to leave. Indeed, the two cities share some striking parallels: both are industry towns, Detroit for auto manufacturing, and Vegas for gaming tourism; both cities experienced intense booms, Detroit at the start of the 20th century, and Vegas at the end of it; and both have been hit hard as their boom economies experienced extraordinary challenges, with Detroit facing the decline of domestic manufacturing and Vegas facing the decline of the domestic pocketbook.

But Las Vegas has a key advantage that Detroit does not share: it is dependent on an industry that is rooted in place. You can drive a car (or a factory) right out of Detroit, but Vegas succeeds because of its concentration of spectacle and excess. Vegas has long competed successfully with casinos in other cities. Atlantic City and Reno are one thing, but in the past couple of decades casinos have become popular plug-the-hole-in-the-budget schemes for cities around the US. (Even Detroit has put a lot of its downtown-revival eggs into the casino basket).

This competition has driven Vegas to become a center of innovation for the tourism and hospitality industries: it succeeds not because it is a center of glittering decadence, but because it is the center--the hub that other glitz-burgs model themselves after. The product here is a place-based experience, and that's a lot harder to outsource.

But MarketWatch also notes that Sin City has been well-trumped as the world's largest gaming center by Macau. While this fact is nothing to sneeze at, gambling tourism is not a zero-sum game considering the limits imposed by distance--that old, inconvenient truth that keeps Thomas Friedman up at night. Macau's new-found financial supremacy can be attributed more to the rise of Asian economies than a loss of interest in the Strip. Vegas remains the premier gambling center in North America, and it hardly seems likely that the good people of Omaha and Altoona will start hopping flights to the South China coast en masse any time soon.

A one-horse town will always be economically vulnerable, and the city should continue its efforts to diversify. Las Vegas' reliance on such an unstable industry played an undeniable role in magnifying the impact of the foreclosure crisis there (when your income shrinks, vacations are often the first thing to get cut from the budget). Still, don't bet against a comeback. "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" turns out to be a surprisingly apt summation of how the city's economy functions. It may be tacky and garish, but that's part of the fun; Las Vegas is a city that cannot be separated from its Brand. The place is the product.

Posh to be Poor? Housing

You've probably noticed a recurring theme throughout this series: the state of the economy sucks, and we need to learn how to deal with it. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the foreclosure crisis that is engulfing the United States, where many people have lost their homes or are very close to losing them. In Toledo, Ohio, Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur has publicly told residents facing foreclosure to simply stay put and not leave their foreclosed homes, forcing the bank to file paperwork and produce the note of ownership. There is a program in Miami that is working to move homeless families into recently foreclosed homes.

Squatting is nothing new, but the fact that government officials are basically encouraging it and, in some cases, creating programs for it somehow makes it seem more acceptable than it once was. Squatting has typically been an act of necessity for the poorest of the poor: there is nowhere else to go, so you find an abandoned house and make it your own. It has certainly never been considered an option for the middle class American, until now. So what happens when a society or a government begins to recognize squatting as a real option -- not just for the poor, but the middle class as well?

With this mainstream acceptance, the more opportunistic among us will go for the gold: mansion-squatting. Even the wealthy are getting hit with foreclosures, leaving mansions of the Mc- variety as well as sprawling Hamptons estates vacant. One art collective in London known as Da! took up residence in a 30-room mansion on Upper Grosvenor Street, one of the UK's most expensive neighborhoods. They lived in the house for nearly a month before attracting media attention. Surely, this would be difficult to pull off in many of the suburban gated communities or tight-knit small towns, because neighbors, worried about their homes' worth, would quickly call the cops. However, in cities like Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo, where the once-prevalent upper crust is now long gone, mansions sit vacant by the dozens, with prices lower than most suburban atomic ranches. It's easy to see, in places like these, people just moving in and creating a new life. Who is going to stop them? In these neighborhoods, residents are just happy to see a new face on the block!

A great deal trendier than the opulent mansion, though equally desired, is the warehouse loft. Though the warehouse loft has been in the public eye since the 1970s, it became a real estate frenzy at the start of the new millennium. Developers began making "soft lofts," and authentic exposed brick and beams became luxuries. Poor and homeless people have taken up residence in abandoned warehouses as long as such buildings have existed; the fact that raw warehouse lofts have become such a hip environment to reside in is a clear trend toward the aesthetic appeal of poverty. Which brings me to the interior design movement that has been growing in the US known as Boho Mod, or Bohemian Modern. Basically, it's a mix of classic furniture and thrift store finds. If you open up any Urban Outfitters catalog from the last 4 years you'll see what I'm talking about. It appears that younger generations are turning away from the notion that everything has to be new, toward a more sustainable vision based on using what we already have and what is readily available.

One might say that living in a warehouse isn't the same as living in a warehouse loft, and they would be right. However, artist James Westwater is working to change that with his Homeless Chateau. This tiny wooden room provides a bit of privacy and elegance for the abandoned warehouse dweller. Maybe we all don't want to live in a box, or even in a warehouse, but the fact that so much attention is being paid to the concept is evidence enough that people are taking more and more interest in the aesthetics of poverty.

And it's not just artists and developers, architects have taken a keen interest as well. Architect Teddy Cruz has designed a multi use housing model for Hudson New York which draws heavily from the favelas of Tijuana.

"Where others saw poverty and decay, he saw the seeds of a vibrant social and architectural model, one that could be harnessed to invigorate numbingly uniform suburban communities just across the border." -NYTimes

For one reason or another, the aesthetics of poverty have slowly begun to permeate mass culture. Whether through an innovative housing model, a warehouse loft, or an abandoned mansion, there is something compelling about using what we have and turning that abandoned space into something functional and beautiful. Though many of these ideas remain tied to certain subcultures and demographics, the amount of media attention they have gained over the last decade certainly suggests that the masses are at least curious.

Posh to be Poor? Introduction
Posh to be Poor? Transportation
Posh to be Poor? Food

(Photos from Wisebread, The Guardian, Domino, James Westwater, and the NY Times. The original full-sized versions can be viewed by clicking the photos.)