This story was aired on Oct. 20, 2023 as part of State of Nevada's ICYMI Fridays.
Las Vegas has longer been criticized as a city that doesn’t appreciate its history. So, what can we learn when we take a few minutes and look back?
In this State of Nevada conversation from 2012, Nevada Public Radio’s Dave Becker and longtime Las Vegas Review Journalist Geoff Schumacher discuss the impact of the '90s and '00s era economic boom and the recession that followed.
The conversation was a part of a follow-up on Schumacher's book "Sun, Sin and Suburbia,"a contemporary history of the Las Vegas Valley originally published in 2004.
“There was so much money flowing through this town, everybody in one way or another was benefiting from it,” said Schumacher. “If you're a construction worker, you were making six figures. If you're a dealer dealing with high rollers, you are getting huge tips. If you were a businessman in town, you were raking in the dough. We were so far distant from the Great Depression and were so far distant from anything like what we have ended up seeing here that I think there was no perspective.”
That boom then led to 2009’s s economic downturn and the Great Recession, with unemployment reaching a high of 14.5% in October of 2010.
“We didn't know how to prepare for the worst,” he said. “We just didn't prepare for the worst and, and Las Vegas is the most susceptible city in the nation to the worst, you know, we just we hit, it hit us harder than it hit anybody else, because we were the least prepared for it.”
Schumacher is now the Vice President of Exhibits and Programs at the Mob Museum, but at the time of this conversation, he was the Publisher of the Ames Tribune in Iowa. He said part of the reason the Las Vegas Valley is so distinct is that the urban sprawl leads to a sense of disconnect within the community.
“There isn't that sense of permanence that you enjoy in other communities. And I think that might lend itself to some of our problems here with community with a sense that, hey, I'm in here, I'm in this for the long haul. Rather than, you know what, I'm kind of checking out Vegas for a little while, if it doesn't work out, I'm going on to the next town.”
He told State of Nevada that he believes the only way to fix many of Southern Nevada’s woes is to improve Nevada’s education system -- a conversation that continues today.
Guest: Geoff Schumacher, author, "Sun, Sin and Suburbia: The History of Modern Las Vegas"