Is Las Vegas Still a Good Place to Live?

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one 
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

— Peter Seeger (“Little Boxes” — 1962)

Several years ago, I gathered with a group of friends all visiting Las Vegas.  At the time, each of us lived elsewhere, scattered in different parts of the country.

Someone within our group made what turned out to be an astute observation.  He predicted that, give or take a few years, most of us would eventually end up settling down in Las Vegas.  This made perfectly rational sense.  Everyone among us enjoyed all the typical activities most commonly associated with Las Vegas — including playing poker, sports gambling, dining at good restaurants, plenty of cheap bars, relative affordability, and the around-the-clock lifestyle of the city.  Hey, a man’s got to have his priorities straight.