Las Vegas
Hoover Dam (1936) created modern Vegas—90% of water, all the power. Now 2.2M people monetizing spectacle: Sphere, F1 ($934M impact). Water constraints loom over growth.
Las Vegas exists because a dam exists. The city was a modest railroad stopover when construction of Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam) began in 1930, bringing 21,000 workers to the desert. When the dam was completed in 1936, it provided two things modern Las Vegas could not exist without: electricity and water. In 1937, Fremont Street became "Glitter Gulch" as power from the dam lit the first casinos. The city that rose from the desert was literally powered into existence.
The water equation defines everything. Lake Mead, held back by the Hoover Dam, supplies 90% of Las Vegas's water. The metropolitan area has grown to 2.2 million people—all dependent on a reservoir that has been declining for decades. The city has become a laboratory for water conservation, reusing nearly every drop of indoor water that goes down the drain. But outdoor water use—the golf courses, the fountains, the swimming pools—remains the constraint that will ultimately determine whether Las Vegas can continue growing.
Within that constraint, Las Vegas has mastered a distinctive economic niche: monetizing spectacle. The city reinvents itself constantly because its only resource is attention. From casinos to conventions to concerts, the business model is getting people to travel to a specific spot in the Mojave Desert. The Sphere, a 17,500-seat venue wrapped in 1.2 million LEDs, represents the latest evolution: an immersive experience that cannot be replicated elsewhere. The Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix—revived in 2023 after a 40-year hiatus—generated $934 million in economic impact in 2024, attracting 300,000 visitors. F1 intends to make the race permanent through the mid-2030s.
Brightline West broke ground on a high-speed rail link to Los Angeles in 2024, expected to open in 2028. The 218-mile line will make Las Vegas a day trip from Southern California—expanding the spectacle's catchment area. By 2026, the city's challenge remains what it has always been: whether the water that created modern Las Vegas will continue to flow, or whether Lake Mead's bathtub ring becomes a monument to the limits of desert urbanization.