Being born and raised in Las Vegas, I've seen the city grow and change so incredibly much over the years. Some of the most iconic hotels I knew as a kid have been dramatically imploded into their own footprint, while others have grown and risen up from the ashes like a phoenix. As a city, it's a constantly evolving amoeba, stretching it's tendrils out to the outskirts of the valley as it consumes the desert landscape around it and incorporates new acts and entertainments in it's never-ending quest for cultural relevance. It's a strange thing- this relentless pursuit of growth while interior areas of the city fall by the wayside. Cul de sacs with blockhouses pop up like zits on a teenager's grease-riddled face, with all the creative ingenuity and diversity of those same pustules forming into their angry red whiteheads. While the endless pursuit of growth is great for the construction industry, pockets of decay linger like abscesses through the meat of the city, festering into crime and desperation. This, unsurprisingly, leads the lovely city of Las Vegas to rank as the 4th worst city to live in, in the USA, for 2018. That's right, the glistening city of Sin, where "What happens here, stays here", nestles in right behind Detroit, Michigan, at number 1, Flint (also Michigan) at number 2, and St. Louis, Missouri, at number 3. That's right- between a city decimated by the dissolution of the automotive industry, a city made uninhabitable due to the toxic water contamination caused by fracking and humiliatingly long-standing inactivity or resolution to the issue as it lingers on, and St. Louis, where roughly a quarter of the entire city's population lives below the poverty line and the state's name speaks for itself... Las Vegas finds itself ranking so high due to the sheer volume of violent crime it experiences- 2,136 crimes for every 100,000 residents. While, thankfully, I myself have avoided any major incidents thus far, I have had encounters with crime that left a bad taste in my mouth. Whether it was the teenager who smashed my windshield in with a cinderblock, and tried to blame it on "marijuana withdrawals", or any given night on Fremont street that involves a police presence being needed, it shouldn't come as a big surprise to anyone that a city that builds glistening monuments to the winners relentlessly upon the suffering backs of the losers would be full of such poor unfortunate souls lashing out.
This post is going to show a bit of that decay, along with some of the glistening monuments. This is Vegas, my Vegas. It's not always glamorous.
Until next time.
💜
XOXO,
NAU
No comments:
Post a Comment