Las Vegas is example for urban growth
Book by sociologist Gottdiener shows how "sin city" offers model for development

By PATRICIA DONOVAN
News Services Editor

Las Vegas began as an isolated provisions center and grew to a profitable maturity 100 miles from nowhere in the middle of what is widely considered one of the worst deserts in the world.

Nevertheless, with its vast neon landscape and desert sprawl, today's Las Vegas is synonymous in the public mind with 24-7 gambling, chorus lines, Elvis impersonators and drive-up weddings.

In his new, critically praised book, "Las Vegas: The Social Production of an All-American City," urban sociologist, semiotician and theorist Mark Gottdiener gives us the rest of the story.

Professor and chair of the Department of Sociology and a nationally recognized expert in urban development, Gottdiener tells the untold tale of historical, political and economic growth that replaces the "sin city" of popular imagination with the economic boomtown that is home to more than 1 million people.

Gottdiener's book has been nominated for two of the most prestigious awards presented by the American Sociological Association: the C. Wright Mills Award for the best book written about social issues in the past two years and the Robert E. Park Award for the best book in urban sociology in the past year.

The popular image of Las Vegas, says Gottdiener, is one perpetuated by the mass media and by the 3.5 million tourists who cycle in and out every year. He points out that most visitors stay 2.5 days on average and never are exposed to the community that exists beyond the strip's elaborate themed hotels and casinos. However, he says, Las Vegas is the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the United States, and its development as a major regional wonderland, while unlikely on the face of it, is not accidental and has broad cultural significance.

By looking deeply into the city's history, Gottdiener demonstrates how the growth of this sunbelt oasis can inform our understanding of contemporary urban growth far better than can the study of older urban areas. This knowledge, he says, has important implications for the development of metropolitan regions throughout the country, including the Niagara Frontier.

"Las Vegas demonstrates more recent patterns of rapid urban growth than do traditional urban models," he explains, "and the issues it has dealt with successfully are the same ones that confront older cities today-the decline of the urban core and the increasing importance of tourism and casino gambling in urban development strategies." So, he says the success of the Las Vegas economy can be used as a model for metropolitan areas attempting to discover new, non-industrial strategies for growth.

Gottdiener also is an authority on casino gambling and its social effects, and is conducting research on the actual and potential effects of casino gambling on the Niagara Frontier. While Las Vegas offers a possible model of urban development, he says the issue of legalized gambling must be approached with great caution because it often creates major financial and social problems that are seldom discussed.

Las Vegas can teach us something there and in other areas as well, he says.

"Buffalo has a negative image, just as Las Vegas did for a very long time," Gottdiener points out.

"Las Vegas turned its bad reputation around through vigorous and sophisticated marketing techniques," he says. "In fact, Las Vegas is now synonymous with self-promotion. The city has benefited greatly from tirelessly thrusting itself into the national spotlight for the last 50 years."

The Las Vegas experience proves, he says, that the image of a city-including its fantasy aspects-is as important as its reality in determining future growth and development. Buffalo can do this, he says, if it develops an organized, sustained, well-thought-out effort to combat its negative image.

"Western New Yorkers who discuss our regional problems as if they belong only to the city-an entity with limited geographic boundaries-are making a big mistake," he says. "In fact, they're shooting themselves in the foot. The concept that cities 'end' at their municipal borders has been out of date among sociologists and urban planners for many years. The city's problems are those of its suburbs and neighboring towns, and vice versa. They are not mutually exclusive.

"Unfortunately, even today, Western New York is less than the sum of its parts," he says. "The region has enormous potential that continues to be unused, undeveloped and often simply ignored.

"A lot of people in this area whose job it is to promote the region seem not to fully understand the complex phenomenon at play here.

"In this day and age, it is parochial to assume that any of us benefit from the isolation of the region's suburbs, towns and cities, but we suffer from the results of that kind of thinking in Western New York.

"Publicly, however, and perhaps privately as well, there seems to be no adequate conceptualization of how the mutual exploitation of our resources will produce enormous benefits for the towns and cities that make up this region."

Such noted sociologists as David Boje have said Gottdiener's study of Las Vegas offers new insights into possible plans that metropolitan regions like Buffalo have to develop if they expect to move into the 21st century as thriving, competitive entities.

"Las Vegas is becoming more of a typical American city, while the rest of the country is changing in ways that make it more like Las Vegas, and that includes us," Gottdiener says. "If that's where we're going, we might as well learn from the city that's been there and done that.