{"id":2732,"date":"2015-02-09T07:50:19","date_gmt":"2015-02-09T15:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/?p=2732"},"modified":"2015-02-09T07:50:19","modified_gmt":"2015-02-09T15:50:19","slug":"my-guardian-cities-adventure-in-search-of-the-urban-planning-of-the-las-vegas-strip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/?p=2732","title":{"rendered":"My Guardian Cities adventure in search of the urban planning of the Las Vegas Strip"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Las Vegas Strip isn\u2019t in Las Vegas. You\u2019ve got to understand that before you can understand anything else about this glittering, 4.2-mile stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard described by William L Fox<\/a> as \u201cthe most aggressively branded and promoted concatenation of adult theme parks in the world\u201d. It is also among the most visited places on Earth, having surpassed Mecca back in 1999.<\/p>\n

The Strip was created in Paradise<\/a>, an idyllically named township of Nevada\u2019s Clark County formed by hotel builders who had already built strategically outside city limits as a means of minimising taxes, dodging regulations and avoiding utility disputes with the city proper. Since Paradise\u2019s founding in 1950, the unabashedly capitalistic and hedonistic Strip has seen an astonishing buildup, especially during its two most notable boom times: the mob-run 1960s and the corporatised 1990s.<\/p>\n

But what kind of an urban experience has resulted? To a first-time visitor (myself included), the Strip can look and feel like the concretisation of unplanned chaos \u2013 with its waves of pulsing lights and scrolling video screens; its \u201criot\u201d of clashing, garish architectural styles; the wide central river of frequently gridlocked traffic; and the swarms of tourists, all dressed with aggressive casualness and milling blindly every which way. But does it make any sense at all to apply the term \u201curban planning\u201d to the Strip? Or is this simply what happens when money dictates every aspect of a built environment?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the whole thing at The Guardian<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Las Vegas Strip isn\u2019t in Las Vegas. You\u2019ve got to understand that before you can understand anything else about this glittering, 4.2-mile stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard described by William L Fox as \u201cthe most aggressively branded and promoted concatenation of adult theme parks in the world\u201d. It is also among the most visited […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-las-vegas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2732"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2733,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2732\/revisions\/2733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}