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Comment by Ididntdothis | Hacker News Reader

Last time I was there I thought LV is like growing up in Germany I always thought the US was: pragmatic, over the top and innovative. Most of the US feels very stale and over the hill to me but it seems in Las Vegas people are still moving.

On the other hand: it’s pretty nuts to build such a city in the middle of the desert.

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It's the middle of the desert but geographically close to one of America's largest rivers, which supplies the overwhelming majority of our water. Whether or not that's sustainable is a matter of debate, but you don't have to be a hydrologist to look out over Lake Mead while flying in and see the water is historically low.

Our electricity situation is more distributed. Yes, the Hoover Dam is nearby, but we draw power from thousands of sources, most out of state. The newest/densest development in the last several years -- City Center on the Strip -- has its own off-the-grid power system.

Southern Nevada actually gets most of its electricity from power plants within the state: mainly from natural gas power plants owned by NV Energy adjacent to Vegas. Here's a recent Power Content Label for Southern Nevada [1]. Not much of the electricity consumed in Southern Nevada is purchased from out-of-state. Most of the natgas used in Southern Nevada's power generation comes from western Wyoming.

[1] https://www.nvenergy.com/publish/content/dam/nvenergy/bill_i...

LV is an entertainment economy. It necessarily presents itself differently than other locales.

Many cities are in the middle of the desert: Dubai, Cairo, Doha, etc... Bonus point: Land is cheap. No trees to care about.

Except for all of those trees (and grass!) we plant to help us forget we live in a desert.

What do all of those cities have in common? They will quickly become post-apocalyptic ghost towns as soon as the oil runs out.

Electricity is pretty cheap I understand, compared to the rest of the US. Due to hydro and solar?

So, perfect for a place that has lots of air-con and lights.

On my visit there we were amazed that we could swim in near freezing air temp in the huge heated outside pool (more than double the size of an olympic.)

Yes it's an extravagance, but at the same time where else might you get that experience except at natural hot springs locations?

It's not about electricity. Las Vegas is literally the worst place to build a large city with extravagant outdoor swimming pools, fountains, etc because those things require water and those things lose water at a ridiculous rate in the middle of a desert. Water is also not generally abundant in a desert (by virtue of it being a, uh, desert)

Deserts are dry on average, but some parts are quite wet :-)

FWIW, Las Vegas water rates are lower than the average US city.

That could be because the cost is subsidised by gambling and perhaps it doesn't includes the cost of say building Hoover Dam.

But also the infrastructure is more modern than the typical US city.

For comparison, Atlanta's water rates are MUCH higher than Las Vegas despite it having 10 times the annual rainfall.

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