Experts at Brookings event say Las Vegas will boom again

By Joe Schoenmann

Published Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2008 | 9:28 a.m.

Updated Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2008 | 10:56 a.m.

Urban fortune tellers never predicted the huge growth that came to Las Vegas. Those holding the strings to federal purses seemed to forget that Las Vegas even existed.

To Robert E. Lang, author of “Boomburbs: The Rise of America’s Accidental Cities,” the oversight wasn’t really a slight and should not be considered an insult.

What population prognosticators and governmental grant-givers saw was simply a factor of the region’s relative smallness in the 20th Century. But at a special meeting of the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution at UNLV this morning, Lang said those days of ignoring the Intermountain West are gone.

Even, Lang added, with an eye toward the present economic downturn. The current economic slump is more of a “bump in the road,” he contended.

“Growth for Las Vegas has dropped to about 1 percent a year,” Lang told about 150 government, business and academic leaders at the UNLV Foundation Building.

“(This region) will know feasts again,” Lang said. “It will come back. It’ll be bigger than it is now. It’s always difficult to see the next engine of growth.”

Going with that theme that things won’t slow down in the long-term, Pat Mulroy, Southern Nevada Water Authority general manager, said very plainly that the future water needs of the region might be met by the Midwest.

Creating reservoirs that not only control flooding in the Midwest, but then create massive water sources for the Southeast and the Southwest is an idea that will need enormous political support — but it is also a necessity, she said.

“This is going to be difficult politically to have that dialogue, but I cannot help thing there’s a possibility of a package that provides the needed flood protection and the drought protection to the far Southwest and West that is so desperately needed,” Mulroy said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid showed up to hear some of the concerns outlined in the Brookings Institution report. He began speaking at 10:50 a.m. But Nevada’s other senator, John Ensign could not make it due to scheduling conflicts, organizers said.

. . .

9:28 a.m.

Think tank gathers leaders to try to improve region’s future

A diverse cast of about 150 business, political, governmental and academic leaders from throughout the state packed a room on the UNLV campus this morning not just to listen, but to impel U.S. Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign to focus more federal attention on Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona.

A massive report by the independent think tank Brookings Institution last summer made the case that the federal government has long overlooked this part of the country, which Brookings sees as becoming the new American heartland.

“It is incumbent upon us to impress upon our federal representatives how important this plan is, because this is going to be the next 50 years of southern Nevada,” said Brian Greenspun, a Brookings trustee and Las Vegas Sun editor.

He looked at decisions being made now about the region as similar to those made in Las Vegas in the middle of the 20th century.

“Fifty years ago, we had to decide what kind of town we wanted it to be, whether we wanted it to be a mobbed-up town that satisfied the needs of the very few or whether we wanted it to be a megapolitan area that served everyone,” Greenspun said. “We are taking our heads out of the sand and looking out five, 10, 25 years and saying: What kind of region can we help create?”

The second speaker, Clark County Chairman Rory Reid noted the importance of this meeting in relation to the upcoming election.

“A week from today, we will elect a president, a Congress and one third of the U.S. Senate, so I think it’s good we talk to our local leaders and our connection to Washington and how we can improve it,” Reid said.

Along with UNLV and Nevada higher education administrators, among those attending were: Clark County Manager Virginia Valentine; Pat Mulroy, Southern Nevada Water Authority general manager; Jacob Snow, general manager of the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada and at least a half dozen members of the media.

Reid and Ensign are scheduled to arrive around 10 a.m.