City redevelopment

When The Mirage, the first Megaresort, opened in 1989, it started a movement of people and construction away from downtown Las Vegas to the Las Vegas Strip. This resulted in a drop in tourism from which the downtown area is still trying to recover.
A concerted effort has been made by city officials to diversify the Las Vegas economy from tourism by attracting light manufacturing, banking, and other commercial interests. The lack of any state individual or corporate income tax and very simple incorporation requirements have fostered the success of this effort.
Having been late to develop an urban core of any substantial size, Las Vegas has retained very affordable real estate prices in comparison to nearby urban centers. Consequently, the city has recently enjoyed an enormous boom both in population and in tourism. However, as a New York Times series on the city reported in 2004, the median price of housing in the Las Vegas Valley is now at or above the nationwide median. The urban area has grown outward so quickly that it is beginning to run into the Bureau of Land Management holdings along its edges, increasing land values enough that medium- and high-density development is beginning to occur closer to the core.
As a reflection of the city's rapid growing population, the new Chinatown of Las Vegas was constructed in the early 1990s on Spring Mountain Road. Chinatown initially consisted of only one large shopping center complex, but the area was recently expanded for new shopping centers that contain various Asian businesses.
Binion's Horseshoe Casino.
With the Strip expansion in the 1990s, downtown Las Vegas began to suffer. The Fremont Street Experience (FSE) was built in an effort to draw tourists downtown. While greatly slowing the decline, it did not stop the decline in tourism and revenue. The multi-level Neonopolis, complete with food court and theaters, was built to offer more retail and services downtown. While there have been changes in ownership and management, Neonopolis has not been able to lease all the space available. As of March 2005, the property is for sale.
The city purchased 61 ac (247,000 m²) of property from Union Pacific Railroad during the 1990s with the goal of creating something that would draw tourists and locals to the downtown area. Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman has announced plans for the Union Park Development which will include residential and office high-rises, The Lou Ruvo Alzheimer's Institute, an academic medical center, The Fred W. and Mary B. Smith Center for the Performing Arts, a new City Hall and a possible baseball stadium. After failed negotiations with The Related Co. on the development of Union Park in October of 2005, San Diego-based Newland Communities was chosen by the city as the new development firm. The Newland contract calls for Dan Van Epp, Newland's regional vice president and former president of the Howard Hughes Corp., to oversee his company's work on Union Park. The $50-million Lou Ruvo Alzheimer's Institute designed by architect Frank Gehry is expected to break ground in August of 2006. The city council of Las Vegas has agreed on zoning changes on Fremont Street, which allows bars to be closer together duplicating efforts of similar cities, like the Gaslamp Quarter of San Diego. It is expected that this change will bring more tourism and business to the downtown area.
In the early 2000s, some promising signs emerged for downtown Las Vegas. The city successfully lured the Internal Revenue Service to move operations from outside the city limits to a new building downtown that opened in April 2005. The IRS is expected to create a demand for additional businesses in the area, epecially in the daytime hours.
Another promising sign of development has come in the form of high-rise development. A substantial increase in the number of high-rises under construction and proposed in Las Vegas began in 2003 and has continued into 2006. New Condominum and hotel high rise projects have caused the entire Las Vegas skyline to change dramatically in recent years. Many large projects are planned for downtown Las Vegas as well as the Las Vegas Strip including the largest privately financed development proposed in the United States- Project City Center. It is expected that high rise condominium development will transform the downtown area into a vibrant urban center, and change the demographics of the Las Vegas Strip by adding residential elements to tourist areas.
Las Vegas from space
In 2005, on a lot adjacent to the city's 61 ac (247,000 m²), the World Market Center opened. It is intended to be the nation's and possibly the world's preeminent furniture wholesaleshowroom and marketplace, and is meant to compete with the current furniture market capital of High Point, North Carolina.
In 2004, the city partnered with Cheetah Wireless Technologies and MeshNetwork to pilot a wide area mobile broadband system. The pilot system is installed downtown, around the Fremont Street Experience.

Geography

Las Vegas is located at <36°11′39″N, 115°13′19″W (36.194168, 115.222060GR1. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 182.50 km² (113.4 mi²). 182.34 km² (113.3 mi²) of it is land and 0.16 km² (0.1 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 0.04% water.
The city is located in an arid basin surrounded by mountains varying in color from pink to rust to gray. As befits a desert, much of the landscape is rocky and dusty. Within the city, however, there are a great deal of lawns, trees, and other greenery. Due to water resource issues, there is now a movement to encourage xeriscaping instead of lawns. Another part of the water conservation efforts include scheduled watering groups for watering residential landscaping.

History, Founding

Las Vegas was given its name by Spaniards in the Antonio Armijo party, who used the water in the area while heading north and west along the Old Spanish Trail from Texas. In the 1800s, areas of the Las Vegas Valley contained artesian wells that supported extensive green areas or Meadows (Vega in Spanish), hence the name Las Vegas.
John C. Frémont traveled into the Las Vegas Valley on May 3,1844, while it was still part of Mexico. He was a leader of a group of scientists, scouts and observers for the United States Army Corps of Engineers. On May 10, 1855, following annexation by the United States, Brigham Young assigned 30 Mormon missionaries led by William Bringhurst to the area to convert the PaiuteIndian population. A Fort was built near the current downtown area, serving as a stopover for travelers along the "Mormon Corridor" between Salt Lake and the briefly thriving Mormon colony at

Las Vegas, Nevada

Las Vegas is the most populous city in the state of Nevada, United States, and a major vacation, shopping, and gambling destination. It was established in 1905
, officially became a city in 1911 and is the largest American city that was founded in the 20th century.
The name Las Vegas is often applied to the unincorporated areas of Clark County that surround the city, especially the resort areas on and near the Las Vegas Strip. This 4½ mi (7¼ km ) stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard is mostly outside the Las Vegas city limits, in the unincorporated town of Paradise.
The center of gambling in the US, Las Vegas is marketed as The Entertainment Capital of the World, also commonly known as Sin City, due to forms and degrees of adult entertainment. The city's glamorous image has made it a populthe popularity of legalized gambling, availability of alcoholic beverages any time (like all of Nevada), various ar setting for films and television programs.