Agreed. I was born and raised in Las Vegas, and lived there for decades, and my father before that too. He was from just outside Las Vegas (which, as you probably know, Las Vegas proper, is quite small, but the metro area, quite large). He lived in North Las Vegas and Sunrise Manor for nearly 50 years, as an adult. A few years back, he got out, growing up, there were shots fired every now and then on our street (Originally by the base, we were empty, but the urban area sprawled around us). After I was an adult, my parents lived a few years, same house, but once the shots fired were nightly, they decided it was time to move (About 7 years ago), then about 5 years ago, I left too.
When my dad was a kid (40’s and 50’s), and to a lesser extent, when I was a kid, Las Vegas (Metro area, as a whole), was very very different. Even the climate has changed there, due to the asphalt being everywhere, and all the lawn waterings. When I was a kid, it rained maybe 4 or so times a year, now it seems more often. And the Summer nights cooled down to the 60’s/70’s (50’s and 60’s my dad tells me when he was younger), now it can be 100º after midnight.
Without a “let the good times roll” economy or the debt driven facsimilie of one, Las Vegas is toast. All the dairymen are long gone, and the tech/telecommunications industry has been outsourced. In my opinion, there is little left in Las Vegas to make opne want to live there (Visit, sure, year-round, I think not). I still love Las Vegas, and think of it as “Home” in a way, but I’ve moved out, to a rural area in another state. I dislike aspects here, but I never want to live in a place Like Las Vegas was 10 years ago, let alone today.
It used to be a place that people from all over flocked to. Now it’s in a kind of cannibalistic death spiral. Without new innovation or frequent and loose walleted visitors, the fish (both people and economic wise), are just going to eat one another until there’s one big fish left, and that too will die. There seems to be little to drive anyone to stay there, of myself and my many siblings, only one still lives in the Vegas Area, and she has a summer home/cabin elsewhere.
And as the city is so sprawled out, even Las Vegas and $4 a gallon gas don’t mix. I cannot even fathom $8 a gallon gas. Yikes!
You pretty much described what happened in the Phoenix metro area as well, over the last 30+ or so years. It's turned into a giant asphalt less productive urban jungle, at the expense of losing our farms, groves, and dairies. Most everything now is imported (food) or outsourced (jobs), not a good climate for a sustainable area, especially for a desert one.
Those were decent times what you describe, back when people still knew how to say "thank you" and "please."