LV tops in economic growth

Tuesday, July 10, 2001 | 11:05 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

A U.S. Conference of Mayors report released today placed the Las Vegas metropolitan area at the top of the nation's list in economic growth in the 1990s.

The report released from Washington, D.C., mirrored numerous previously published reports that ranked Southern Nevada as the nation's leader in job growth. Nevada also was the nation's fastest growing state, according to the 2000 Census.

A summary of the latest report revealed that the gross product in the Las Vegas area climbed from $20.6 billion in 1990 to $54.6 billion in 2000. Gross product refers to the value of goods and services produced in the metro area.

The complete report was not immediately available. But a similar report released by the mayors' organization last year revealed that Las Vegas' gross product of $48.1 billion in 1999 exceeded that of several nations, including Nigeria, Syria and Morocco.

"Some of this economic information that's covered by the national media lags behind what we have already put out," said R. Keith Schwer, director of UNLV's Center for Business and Economic Research. "Our gaming and non-gaming sectors have both grown very fast. We have a lot of momentum built up in growth and construction and that should sustain us for the next few years."

Schwer said, however, that he was uncertain whether Las Vegas could maintain its lofty position as the nation's leader over the next decade.

"We could eventually fall behind in the next five years," Schwer said. "There are so many things going on with the nation's economy with certain sectors of growth where we could fall behind, and someone else could move ahead."

Still, the mayors' report was also received gleefully by Trish Williamson, spokeswoman for the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce.

"We've been very fortunate for the last decade," she said. "When times are good, times here are even better."

While the gaming industry remains the leading job producer in Southern Nevada, Williamson attributed much of the increase in gross product to the area's growing retail shopping and restaurant industries. She also said that Las Vegas has been rated the nation's top city over the past three years in small business start-ups, according to Inc. magazine.

"We have no state taxes, which is a big deal to people who pay excessive taxes on the East Coast and West Coast," she said. "It's cheaper to live here."

The mayors' report stated that America's metropolitan areas are vital cogs of the national and global economies and ignited the economic prosperity of the 1990s. The mayors pressed for Congress to pump more money into cities and suburbs.

America's 319 largest metro areas accounted for 85 percent of the nation's gross domestic product and 84 percent of the country's jobs, according to a U.S. Conference of Mayors report released Tuesday.

Longtime leaders like New York and Los Angeles also benefited, the report said. For instance, the New York metro economy was the 14th largest in the world in 2000 - bigger than Australia, the Netherlands and Taiwan.

"Cities are economic powerhouses," said New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial, the conference president.

Morial said the findings offer more evidence that Washington lawmakers should sharpen their focus to help metropolitan areas build on that growth. He highlighted transportation, brownfields development, and education and job training as areas for more investment.

"We are not painting a picture of utopia," he said. "But we think the role that cities played in the country's economic comeback has been forgotten. It's a common view to look at cities as being draining on metro economies."

Still, much of the growth in metro areas is related to other population changes tracked by the latest census, said Bruce Katz, director of the Brookings Institution's Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy.

Nationally, the census showed that 226 million people lived in metro areas in 2000, up 14 percent from 1990.

Suburban population grew 22 percent to 140.6 million, while the number of Americans living in central cities increased 10 percent to 85.4 million.

While cities especially in the South and West experienced population and economic booms, much of the major growth is happening at the fringe of metropolitan areas "off the exit ramps," Katz said.

The report, compiled by Standard and Poor's DRI, ranked the country's 319 largest metro areas and compared their economies to states and other countries.

Other findings:

Steve Kanigher and the Associated Press contributed to this report.