Resort City In The Sunbelt Second Edition

This is an account of Las Vegas, from the building of the Hoover Dam to the construction of the MGM Grand Hotel. It traces the city's development, focusing on issues common to sunbelt cities across the United States, such as underfunded social services and a mania for low taxes.

Resort City in the Sunbelt is a non-sensationalistic, scholarly account of Las Vegas from the building of the Hoover Dam to the construction of the MGM Grand Hotel. Historian Eugene Moehring provides a balanced view of the city’s urban development. Although a unique city in many ways, Las Vegas has displayed characteristics common to other sunbelt cities across the western United States—including underfunded social services, low-density urbanization with a heavy reliance upon automobiles, a sluggish response to problems within minority communities, a preference for efficient, business-like government, and a mania for low taxes. The gaming and resort aspects are fully considered, but Moehring emphasizes the city as part of the continually expanding sunbelt. From this important study, historians will conclude that, despite some of its unusual traits, Las Vegas is much like other western cities and therefore deserves recognition as one of the fastest-growing centers in postwar America. In a new and expanded epilogue to this edition, Moehring looks at the major events of the three decades leading up to 2000 and their underpinnings.

Profiles the Senator and rising star in the Republican Party, from his humble roots as the son of immigrants to his becoming the youngest Speaker in the history of the Florida Statehouse.

Gaining momentum globally, sustainable development is beginning to significantly redefine the policies of corporations and governmental entities. Updated throughout, the second edition of this popular resource includes updates on LEED® measurement and verification and a new chapter on cities and carbon reduction. Clarifying critical issues, this volume examines proven approaches as well as problems with failed initiatives. It addition to core concepts and trends, it explores specific renewable energy and environmental solutions. It examines global initiatives, local politics, and ways to effectively measure and track progress.

More than forty million visitors per year travel to Sin City to visit the gambling mecca of the world. But gambling is only one part of the city’s story. In this carefully documented history, Geoff Schumacher tracks the rise of Las Vegas, including its vital role during World War II; the rise of the Strip in the 1950s; the explosive growth of the 1990s; and the colossal collapse triggered by the real estate bust and economic crisis of the mid-2000s. Schumacher surveys the history of the iconic casinos, debunking myths and highlighting key players such as Howard Hughes, Kirk Kerkorian, and Steve Wynn. Schumacher’s history also profiles the Las Vegas where more than two million people live. He explores the neighborhoods sprawling beyond the Strip’s neon gleam and uncovers a diverse community offering much more than table games, lounge acts, and organized crime. Schumacher discusses contemporary Las Vegas, charting its course from the nation’s fastest-growing metropolis to one of the Great Recession’s most battered victims. Sun, Sin & Suburbia will appeal to tourists looking to understand more than the glitz and glitter of Las Vegas and to newcomers who want to learn about their new hometown. It will also be an essential addition to any longtime Nevadan’s library of local history. First published in 2012 by Stephens Press, this paperback edition is now available from the University of Nevada Press.

Now in a Spanish-language edition: the definitive biography of Senator Marco Rubio, the youngest Speaker of the Florida Statehouse and the biggest rising star in the Republican Party. Florida Senator Marco Rubio has been called the “crown prince” of the Tea Party movement and “the Michael Jordan of Republican politics.” Some might think that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but no one—not even his rivals in the Democratic Party—disagrees with the fact that Marco Rubio is going far in American politics. Manuel Roig-Franzia delivers the story of how Rubio came up so fast and why. It’s a classic American odyssey: his parents left Cuba for a better economic life in Miami a few years before Castro came to power; his father worked as a bartender, his mother as a maid and then stock clerk at Kmart. When the cocaine cowboys were terrorizing south Florida, Rubio’s family moved to Vegas, where his father worked in a gambling hall. When they moved back to south Florida, the small but tough Rubio made the football team, became an expert on the Miami Dolphins, and raced to begin a political career minutes after graduating from law school. By the time he was sworn in as speaker of the Florida House of Representatives in 2000, he was the youngest person and the first Hispanic to hold that position. Mike Huckabee likes to say: “He is our Barack Obama with substance.” Marco describes all facets of this policy wonk married to a former Dolphins cheerleader with whom he has four children. Rubio has the endurance, smarts and charisma to be a presence on the American political scene for years to come. This is a book his fans, and critics, must read.

When Elvis crooned "Bright light city . . . gonna set my soul on fire," he voiced and embraced the siren call of a glittering urban utopia that continues to mesmerize millions. Call it Sin City or Lost Wages, Las Vegas definitely deserves its rapturous "Viva!" Larry Gragg, however, invites readers to view Las Vegas in an entirely new way. While countless other authors have focused on its history or gaming industry or entertainment ties, Gragg considers how popular culture has depicted the city and its powerful allure over its first century. Drawing on hundreds of films, television programs, novels, and articles, Gragg identifies changing trends in the city's portraits. Until the 1940s, boosters promoted it as the "last frontier town," a place where prospectors and cowboys enjoyed liquor, women, and wide-open gambling. Then in the early 1950s commentators increasingly characterized Las Vegas as a sophisticated resort city in the desert, and ever since then journalists, filmmakers, and novelists have depicted a city largely built by organized crime and featuring non-stop entertainment, gambling, luxury, and, of course, beautiful-and available-women. In Gragg's narrative, these images form a kaleidoscope of lights, sounds, characters, and ultimately amazement about this neon oasis. In these pages, readers will meet gangsters like Bugsy Siegel, Tony Spilotro, and Lefty Rosenthal, as well as Las Vegas's most popular entertainers: Elvis Presley, Sinatra's Rat Pack, Liberace, and Wayne Newton, not to mention the Folies Bergere showgirls. And Gragg's skillful interweaving of fictional and journalistic accounts of organized crime shows just how mutually reinforcing they have become over the years. Vegas will always make people's eyes light up as bright as the Strip, witness the new TV show Vegas or the recent film The Hangover. For everyone entranced by its glitter and glamour, Bright Light City is a must read boasting color photos and bursting with insider details: an eclectic blend of stories, people, sights, and sounds that together make up this desert city's extraordinary appeal.