Leaving Las Vegas

American magazines are full of advertisements inviting tourists to come to Las Vegas. The glossiest one listing the greatest cities in America states: “So, you are not a Vegas person?” Its trying to show that, contrary to most people’s idea of the city being one of strippers, slot machines and impromptu weddings, Nevada’s capital* can also offer something to the most refined of travelers via its art galleries, high-class restaurants and spas.

But apart from the image that it tries to project, lately Las Vegas has been having some hard times. The most popular U.S. online news blog, The Huffington Post, devotes itself to exploring how Americans are really coping with the recession, in a piece entitled “Vegas Stripped.” Like Vegas’ burlesque dancers, without the sequins.

With an economy tied to tourism and booms in real estate sales, the city in the Nevada desert has been hit especially hard by the recession. According to monthly data collected by the Associated Press, the area is one of the most economically depressed in the nation with 15 percent of the 145,000 thousand inhabitants out of work.

In early October, the New York Times investigated the argument that Las Vegas is suffering through the worst downturn since its beginnings in the 1940s when the first skyscrapers sprouted in the Nevada desert.

For 44 consecutive months, Nevada has come out as the number one state in the country for foreclosures; that is cases where homeowners can no longer pay their home loans, so the property is seized by banks and put back on the market at slashed prices.

One of the local strongholds, The Plaza Hotel and Casino, announced that it will lay off 400 employees and close for “renovations.” Even gambling is suffering: Income of the casino has fallen by 5 percent in recent months. Mayor Oscar B. Goodman explained to the New York Times that “people aren’t spending on gambling as they have in the past. Ordinarily, Las Vegas was the last to go into a recession and the first to come out. This one is different.”

Times are far from rosy for Sin City, and it won’t be enough to guess the right number on the roulette to pull it out of the mire.

*Editor’s Note: Carson City is the capital of Nevada, not Las Vegas.