ancient cities

postmodern urban design theory. One is left to
assume that, in her view, Las Vegas lies outside
realms of deliberate strategic, design-centered urban
development and is therefore not noteworthy.
Nevertheless, as a product of postmodern urbanism,
the typology of the Urban Entertainment
District (UED), which Las Vegas amply exemplifies,
has generated a broad spectrum of unique selling
propositions, which now extend from slot
machines and video poker all the way up to fine
dining (4 of the 17 five-star restaurants in the entire
United States are on the Strip), haute couture
(Caesar’s Forum, at $1,300 per square foot for
leased space, is the world’s greatest concentration
of luxury retail outlets), and upmarket art collections.
Shopping now ranks first with visitors, above
gambling, as the reason they come to the city.
Social and Cultural Studies
Studies of Las Vegas as an urban phenomenon
have not been restricted to architectural theory
and urban geography. Las Vegas also looms large
within film studies, sociology, tourism and leisure
studies, and critical theory. Within this multidisciplinary
landscape, debate has tended to focus on
the real/fake distinction, where Las Vegas is seen
to offer a pertinent and challenging configuration.
Judd and Fainstein suggest that “Las Vegas explicitly
advertises itself as a fake neon city. . . . But
tourists do not always want to be humored or
amused. Instead they often seek immersion in the
daily, ordinary, authentic life of a culture or place
that is not their own.” Hal Rothman’s take is
more nuanced: “It’s not that people can’t tell the
difference [between authentic and inauthentic in
Las Vegas]—they can. But in a culture without a
dominant set of premises or culturally agreed
upon values . . . it’s hard to communicate why
conventional authenticity is better.”
Mark Gottdiener, coauthor of Las Vegas: The
Social Production of an All-American City and
author of The Theming of America, has examined
the relationship between values and their communication
via theming. He regards authenticity in
Las Vegas as having to do with being overendowed
with signification and meaning to produce
an intensely specialized pleasure zone. Gottdiener
also shows how this becomes part of a bigger
process, where the stakes are raised for iconic
Las Vegas, Nevada
439
skylines and buildings-as-brands. As such, the
strong visual and iconic appeal of Las Vegas
becomes normalized and contiguous with urban
development agendas elsewhere, and Las Vegas
consequently takes its place in the global order of
things, as part of the global pecking order of other
Guggenheim museums, other Dolce and Gabbana
stores, other Hard Rock cafés.
Never far from debates about authenticity is
the specter of Disneyfication and the privatization
of public space. George Ritzer’s take on Disneyfication
regards it as a handmaiden to capitalism,
capable of producing and sustaining markets with
strong, infantilized, predictable, and controlling
imagery. Las Vegas may have strayed into the
market of family entertainment but never fully
embraced it for fear of alienating its core customer
base. Family-oriented elements are evident in Las
Vegas, and the general ambience has become more
daytime, more televisual, and consequently rehabilitated
as a result. Ritzer sees the greatest similarity
between Disney and Las Vegas in the notion
of a total institution, defined by Erving Goffman
as “places of residence and work, where large
numbers of like situated individuals, cut off from
the wider society for an appreciable period of
time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered
round of life.” As a total institution,
Las Vegas gathers and isolates those who come
with hopes of winning but an underlying acceptance
that they will lose money in the interests of
enjoyment.
Writing his Scenes in America Deserta in 1982,
Reyner Banham claimed that Las Vegas avoids the
question of “How could they have made a place
like that?” Today one could also claim that Vegas
ducks the question “Do people actually live here?”
There is an obvious disconnect between Las Vegas
the UED and Las Vegas as an entire settlement.
This leads one to question if in fact Las Vegas is a
city at all—or conversely, is it what all cities are in
the process of becoming?
Looking Ahead
Banham suggests that above all else, Las Vegas
represents “the impermanence of man in the
desert.” It remains to be seen whether the quality
of impermanence is to be realized: Will Las Vegas
at some point be abandoned due to rising surface