Seeing the America of Tomorrow in Las Vegas Today
With more than 2 million people in one corner of an otherwise mostly rural state, Greater Las Vegas represents the most extreme mismatch in the country between a large-scale metro area and the rest of its state. The city and its sprawling suburbs are now a majority-minority metropolis, while the rest of Nevada is much less diverse. This disparity in population carries over into economics, politics, and virtually every other aspect of modern life.
The demographic characteristics of Las Vegas also represent the future of the United States. By 2060 the nation overall will mirror the demography of Las Vegas of 2018. To understand and meet the public policy challenges facing the nation's growing Sunbelt metro regions in future generations, it's necessary to study today's Las Vegas--not just the faux glitter of the famed casinos but the hard, everyday realities of a working, and still-growing, metropolis.
This book, edited by three urban experts who live and work in Las Vegas, examines the city and its region through the lens of a previous, influential Brookings book. The Metropolitan Revolution: How Cities and Metros Are Fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy, by Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley, which argues that urban areas can be more capable of solving some of the nation's pressing policy problems than are the politicians ensnared in the gridlock of Washington and in state capitals. Following that theme, Damore, Danielsen, and Brown highlight several areas where Southern Nevada has used coalitional politics to advance its social and economic interests, as well as instances when intraregional factions have undermined critical priorities.
Las Vegas and the Metropolitan Revolution will appeal to a broad audience: students and scholars of public policy; readers in the American West;, urban planners, policymakers, politicians, and appointed officials; and political, business, and community leaders in large metropolitan areas throughout the country.
About the Author: David Damore is a professor of political science at the University of Nevada‒Las Vegas (UNLV), who regularly comments on Nevada politics for local, national, and international media outlets. His research focuses on electoral politics and applied public policy. He is a nonresident senior fellow in the Brookings Institution's Governance Studies division, a key vote adviser for Project Vote Smart, and a senior analyst at Latino Decisions. He is also serving as the President of the Southwestern Political Science Association (2017-18).
Karen A. Danielsen is associate professor of public affairs at UNLV. Previously, she was an assistant professor at Virginia Tech and has held various research positions in think tanks and nonprofit institutions in Washington, D.C. Her research focuses on housing policy, community development, governance, and metropolitan structure. She has been an associate editor for the journal Housing Policy Debate and a book review editor for the Journal of the American Planning Association.
William E. Brown Jr. is UNLV director of Brookings Mountain West, responsible for coordinating the research programs, public lectures, and other activities of a collaboration between the Brookings Institution and the university. He has published a diverse array of scholarly works in American history, literature, politics, and related fields. Brown has held appointments as an academic research librarian, faculty member, and administrator at Yale University, the University of Miami, and the University of California‒Berkeley before joining UNLV in 2005.
