The Most American City Isn’t New York, L.A., Or Chicago

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FastCoDesign.com
BY STEFAN AL 04.11.17 | 9:00 AM

Sands Hotel Las Vegas, NV [Photo: courtesy MIT Press]
Sands Hotel Las Vegas, NV [Photo: courtesy MIT Press]

The Most American City Isn’t New York, L.A., Or Chicago
Long dismissed, this one city’s design gets the credit it’s due in a new book from MIT Press.

“Editors’ Note: In The Strip, a new book from MIT Press, Stefan Al–an architect, urban designer, and associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania–compares the evolution of Las Vegas to the cultural metamorphosis of the American dream. The following chapter is excerpted, with permission.”
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“The Strip began as an exception. But increasingly it has become a rule—in its holistically designed and multisensory environments, in being technologically wired and “smart,” in patterns of urban development, in financial practices, and in aesthetic tastes. For decades, Vegas marketed itself as an over-the-top series of urban stunts. But this seemingly outrageous behavior took advantage of fundamental changes in American society. The urbanistic role of Vegas has also taken a turn. The Strip began as essentially anti-urban, with inwardly oriented resorts located outside of the incorporated city of Las Vegas. Today, the Strip is a major pedestrian space with casinos that contribute to a larger urban experience. Vegas has now even become a model for 21st-century urbanism that other cities are seeking to emulate. Not only that, the city provides lessons for anyone called upon to create landmarks, attention-getters, fantasy environments, spectacular images, or memorable experiences. I personally witnessed the city’s impact as an architect when Chinese clients for the world’s largest tower, after a visit to the Strip, wanted the Bellagio’s musical fountains. They wanted Vegas.”

STEFAN AL continues:
From its inception in 1941, the Strip has mutated beyond even its own wildest dreams. In the 1940s, Strip developers dressed like cowboys, some packing real guns, built hacienda-style casinos that broke ground with moving neon displays as big as windmills. By the 1950s, casino builders replaced the wagon wheels with Cadillac tailfin forms, and pumped underwater Muzak into exotically shaped pools. The 1960s neon signs, as tall as 20-story buildings and as long as two football fields, were ripped down in the 1970s when the emphasis shifted to the buildings themselves, and chandeliers the size of trucks. By the next decade, the chandeliers had been replaced by a 10-story, laser-eyed sphinx and a fiery volcano spewing piña colada scent. Charmed by the world’s famous cities in the late 1990s, Las Vegas built replicas, including the Eiffel Tower, New York skyscrapers, and Venetian canals. But in the new millennium, a mere decade later, replicas were out and serious architectural originals, which housed museum-quality collections of authentic art, were in.

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If any city deserves the “Makeover Award” for the most drastic changes to its image, it is Las Vegas More…

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The Cloud Foundation

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Mining Threatens Three Wild Horse Herds
Mining Threatens Three Wild Horse Herds

Please Comment by April 17 on the Planning Expansion of the Gold Bar Mine.

Nevada wild horse herds threatened!

Dear Friends of our Wild Horses;

Comments for an Environmental Impact Statement are due April 17th, 2017 regarding the massive expansion of the Gold Bar Mine north of Eureka, Nevada.

If this expansion moves forward it will threaten three wild horse herds areas: Roberts Mountain, Fish Creek, and Whistler Herd Management Areas (HMAs).

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Please take a few minutes and comment on this destructive mining project using your own words.

Here are a few key points we suggest you make to the Bureau of Land Management:

1. Open pit gold mining is the most destructive use of the land with little ability to mitigate the damage.
2. The project would expand to 44,000 acres or 62.5 square miles.
3. The project would consume approximately 2 billion gallons of water over a ten-year period, depleting both surface and ground water.
4. Nevada is the driest state in the Union.
5. Lack of water is regularly the reason BLM/Nevada gives for conducting emergency removals of wild horses from the range. 14 herds were zeroed out in 2009 based on the prediction of little available water!
6. Wild horses and other wildlife will suffer from the environmental destruction and lack of water. Sage Grouse occupy the area and are a species of critical environment concern.
7. The mining expansion is based on out-of-date mining plans from 1992.
8. Gold mining is highly speculative. The previous mine owners, Atlas Corporation, filed for bankruptcy and abandoned the land in an unreclaimed condition in 1999.

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Read TCF full comments here: EISCommentsGoldBarMineNV
Tell BLM to select the NO ACTION ALTERNATIVE.

Send your comments to Christine Gabriel—Project Manager, Subject: DEIS MMI Gold Bar Mine Project
Email: blm_nv_bmdo_mlfo_gold_bar_project_eis@blm.gov. [copy and paste]

Thanks very much for helping our Nevada wild herds!!

Happy Trails!
Ginger Kathrens

TheCloudFoundation.org/
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