Maybe I can add a thought or three..
Maybe I can add a thought or three..
In my almost 4 months there as a "local", and visits since 1972, Vegas is seriously in transition.
Todays disposable income is way down,"Casinos" are everywhere and you have on-line.
A news story Wednesday blurbed the average smuck coming to town has an average of $448 to gamble with.
I remember that figure being double that in the not to distant past.
The strip is the Vegas cash cow...there are 50,000 cameras protecting the "pigeons" err tourists.
A good part of the "homeless", pan handlers,
seriously downtrodden, have been re-located.
The Vegas chamber of commerce does not want
tourists hassled as they spend, gamble, shop.
My guarded gated 55+ community is in an area called the Meadows.
Northwest of the strip..this area consisted of springs that watered travelers back to the time of the Mastodon hunters.
It actually supplied water to downtown Vegas into the early 1960's.
It is now a small swamp with sunken grounds due to water depletion from urban growth.
Anyhow, it is Decatur and I-95.
It got so depressing driving Decatur daily, that I found alternate routes.
I realized viewing daily the street people, pan-handlers, kids on skateboards, bikes, skates, 300 pound people on 49-cc mini motorbike,
doing 20MPH, sign twirlers at almost every corner pimping a store, bus stands loaded with hardened people going thru daily motions, handicapped people on scooters, shopping cart people..(the local Walmart put an electronic brake on their carts that lock up the rear right wheel if it crosses property boundaries), all this is an unwanted view of the "belly of the beast" the strip goers never see...it is very depressing to see such a massive state of urban decay and human struggle.
It extends on almost all of Decatur to Tropicana.
Many of the casinos strip and otherwise need to re-invent themselves.
It is taking the form of "Clubs" "Topless Pools"
Drink oasis's overflowing onto strip sidewalks, like Caesars Palace.
It is now a bloated barge of 20 year old somethings watching traffic as they sip $10.00 drinks.
The days of the cavernous casinos
stuffed with people, densely populated boisterous crap and blackjack tables appear greatly reduced.
I think with the "Clubs" Topless pools, and whatever claptrap they can come up with is a serious effort to appeal to the young party crowd.
Gone are the well heeled, well dressed crowds that oiled the Vegas machine.
Their disposable income shot, their home values plummeting, lets just go to a nearby Indian Casino, less hassle and expense.
I am still trying to wrap a handle around the many thoughts to add, summing up my recent Vegas experience
