Neon Metropolis

Neon Metropolis offers a panoramic, entertaining account of contemporary Las Vegas, long America's capital of excess and now its fastest growing city. Combining a history of the city's growth via gambling and crime, with a richly descriptive social portrait of contemporary Las Vegas, author Hal Rothman shows how the city has shed its stigma as "Sin City", and is now setting the pace for nationwide trends in leisure, work, consumption, immigration, demographics, and city growth. Las Vegas' transition from isolated gambling outpost to its new status of "the first city of the twenty-first century" has not been without problems - rapid growth has been accompanied by sprawl, traffic jams, environmental problems and an invasion by corporate interests. Ultimately, as Neon Metropolis amply documents, the problems and opportunities facing Las Vegas are ones that, increasingly, confront all of America.