Las Vegas building boom expected to create 113,500 jobs

[Bluebear]

I am hoping this influx of working folks will help turn Nevada blue :)

====

Casino operators believe they will have no problem filling hotel rooms with guests and packing casinos with free-spending gamblers during the current building boom, which is expected to bring at least four new resorts to the Strip and an estimated 45,000 more hotel rooms to the Las Vegas market by 2012.

Finding enough employees to clean the rooms, work the restaurants and staff the casinos may not be as easy.

Deutsche Bank Securities, in a report to its investors, said the Las Vegas casino industry will need to hire some 113,500 workers for the positions being created by the new resorts. Analysts for the Wall Street investment house believe if the current growth rate in Clark County's population continues unabated, there will be a shortfall of some 25,000 jobs left unfilled...

Meanwhile, MGM Mirage is already taking steps to staff 12,000 positions at Project CityCenter, which covers the hotel-casino and Vdara condo tower.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2007/Feb-19-Mon-2007/business/12603617.html

[tularetom]

1. They're going to need 213,500 to move all them people out

when the water runs out in a few years.

[Bluebear]

2. Well that's cheerful.

New resources do need to be considered, however.

[XemaSab]

3. New resources like what?

:shrug:

[Bluebear]

5. Desalinization for example

[XemaSab]

9. I'm not going to hold my breath on that

The desalination plant in Santa Barbara has been totally idle since it was built in 1992. It's estimated that if it came online, water prices could be over $1,100 per acre foot, versus $270 per acre foot from the state, and much less than that for local sources. Half of the parts were sold off a few years ago. It's currently drydocked, with all the components needing frequent replacement removed. If it came online, it could produce 3,000 acre feet per year.

One acre foot is roughly the amount needed by a family of four for a year. There are 200,000 people in the metropolitan area. If you assume that people in the area live in households of four (which is a totally ridiculous assumption), then the area needs 50,000 acre feet per year. The desalination plant would therefore provide 6% of the city's water needs.

Right now it's much, much cheaper and easier to get water from the state water project.

http://www.santabarbaraca.gov/Government/Departments/PW/SupplySources.htm

[Porcupine]

10. Please read your sig line.

There is nothing to desalinize in Las Vegas. It's on a plataeu hundreds of miles from the nearest coast.

Optimism DOES NOT CREATE REALITY. That is why you can kep scimming money off stupid tourists. You really need to move to a place with a higher sanity quotient.

[Bluebear]

13. Please educate yourself on the topic before correcting folks

See the post above yours re: Santa Barbara desalinization plant. Nobody is suggesting to desalinize anything in the desert.

And don't tell me where I "need" to move.

[TankLV]

34. YOU need to study up on a topic more before you open your mouth and proove you're an idiot!

Try this one on for a bit:

Nevadans would OWN a desalinization plant on the ocean and sell the fresh water it produced in trade for water produced elsewhere, or even consider having a pipiline constructed to bring the water directly to Nevada.

One doesn't have to be acutally ON HTE OCEAN shoreline to make practical use of such a thing.

But I bet creative thinking - or ANY thinking isn't exactly YOUR strong point.

Now, presently, it is not YET economical to do so, but it might be so in the near future.

Other countries successfully do use such plants, and it is economical for them...

[tularetom]

4. The map says it all

I'm not trying to piss in anybody's cornflakes but it is right in the middle of the effing desert for chrissakes. They rely heavily on over appropriated Colorado River water that is also claimed by AZ and CA under an overly optimistic estimate of river flows made in 1923. It's all going to wind up in court some day and Vegas, Phoenix and So Cal are all going to get slapped upside the head. Betcha a few golf courses will go under and water rates will skyrocket.

[medeak]

6. they are taking our water from up north

trying to devastate valleys of family ranches that have been here for a century.

My folks live in Vegas and complain about having to water only on even days for the first time in 50 yrs....while us folk up north have had to conserve always. State capital deemed my commercial "condo association" to only have gravel with a few shrubs over 40 acres...but southern NV can do whatever they hell they want....don't get me started.

[Bluebear]

7. (I'm sorry I mentioned this topic :)

[medeak]

31. Las Vegas means "The Meadows"

grew up there and the name fit in the old days...artesian wells bubbling out of the ground everywhere. It's all gone now and Lake Mead is down to unheard of levels...yet they keep building!

[TankLV]

35. And CA and AZ have been OVER USING their "share" for decades now...

and Nevadans WILL reclaim the water that CA and AZ have ILLEGALLY used WITHOUT penalty for years.

And Nevadans have ALREADY won in the courts, and have FORCED AZ and CA to bank water for Nevadans' future use requirements...

Incidentally, the water flows FROM Nevada INTO California, so I don't think Nevad would have ANY problems in enforcing the law if it came to that point, which I doubt.

because AZ, NV & CA have already come to an agreement for water use...

[tularetom]

38. The "upper basin" states want their fair share too (CO, NM, UT)

they are experiencing explosive growth in these mountain states and if they get the appropriations they want there won't be jack shit left over for the "lower basin" of NV, AZ and CA. The problem was when the original agreement was made to divvy up the water only CA had the population base and the resources to build the canals to utilize their allotment. Not only that but the original allocations were based on pie in the sky estimates of annual river flows which have rarely been met in over three quarters of a century.

[JanMichael]

33. Agreed it's going to be a disaster.

Blinders on everyone.

[Porcupine]

8. Las Vegas is the "vatican city" of human stupidity.

Ground Zero for the terminally dumb. A city whose greatest economic asset is the ability for people to fly in using scarce fossil fuels and lose money gambling. The very existence of the city relies upon a very poor understanding of math.

Add to this colossal handicap the fact that living there is entirely dependent upon cheap AC, trucking, airfreight, building materials and water piped from the bottom of a canyon. The only native resource the city has is gravel.

Summer temperatures top 120 degrees; frequently.

And people flock there like it was the land of milk and honey.

The place will be a temple to stupidity in truth someday. It's the Auschwitz of climate change. A place utterly dependant of GHG release.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. You've summed up my feelings exactly

Las Vegas IS a monument to human stupidity.

Their own public broadcasting magazine admitted a few years ago that the city is using water at 130% of sustainability, and they want to add 113,000 more people?

:crazy:

Well, I guess moving there will be its own punishment.

[Bluebear]

14. OK OK, then forget the sentiment about turning the state blue

Since all of us who live there are so stupid, why bother?

Honestly, can one even start a topic anymore without people chiming in and giving their negative opinion on where you live, where you work, etc.?

[pampango]

15. On a lighter note, I have heard predictions that the Great Lakes

area will become the OPEC of fresh water in the decades to come. ;)

Hey, we in the upper MidWest have to have something to look forward to, other than bad weather and declining populations.

[Auggie]

17. It's a valid sentiment.

[wuushew]

18. Nevada currently only has 4 electoral votes

Minimizing emigration would lessen the red state effect, and in any case Las Vegas has poor turn out relative the rest of the state. How else to you explain (besides fraud) the state going for Bush in 2004 after he promised to turn the state into a nuclear waste dump?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. The really "blue" thing to do for Nevada would be not to support

the importation of more people than its eco-system can tolerate.

What's so "blue" about overloading the fragile desert environment and using up the little water that it has for hotel fountain displays and swimming pools?

[Bluebear]

25. What do you Minnesotans do to the atmosphere heating your homes every year?

And plugging in your cars so they will start because your ancestors chose to build communities on a frozen lutefisk tundra? :hi:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

30. About as much as Las Vegas spends on air conditioning

both buildings and cars.

(We plug in our cars only when it's more than -20°, which hardly ever happens anymore.)

[TankLV]

36. Umm - ever hear of "recycling"? The water isn't constantly poured in and the drained away...

hasn't been for a LONG time now...

And almost all the golf courses now use brown water and are removing most of their "grasses" areas.

You know nothing about the topic...

[Bluebear]

40. Everyone's an expert, TLV

[Lydia Leftcoast]

42. So why did your own public radio magazine say that Las Vegas is

using water at 130% of capacity?

And does it really make sense to add 113,000 more people?

[theboss]

29. People here are overly harsh

But I think there is a larger issue at stake in the growth of Vegas than simply "turning the state blue."

My understanding is that the friggin' contractors have told the county commissoners to slow down, because the city simply can't handle the growth.

[a kennedy]

20. and I sure hope the Great Lakes area holds onto the water they

have and not go selling to the highest bidder. Pun intended. :grr:

[fudge stripe cookays]

16. I've never been there....

and have no desire to go.

People are always talking about how great it is. Whatever. WHY would I want to go and see some pre-fab version of the pyramids or the Eiffel Tower when I could go see the real thing?

We fucking Americans have no idea of culture-- we just figure we can build our own duplicates and they'll be as good as the original. :eyes:

[raccoon]

21. "GHG release" What's that? nt

[wuushew]

22. Green House Gases

n/t

[lectrobyte]

44. Yes. Kunstler mentions Vegas about every talk he gives. Totally

dependent on a scarce and declining water and fossil fuel supplies... People will look back and wonder just wtf we were thinking.

[The_Casual_Observer]

11. I'd rather die than to have to live out there. However, there seem

to be plenty of others who disagree.

[raccoon]

23. While I understand your sentiments about hoping an influx will

turn your area blue, I have to say building up Las Vegas even more is, well, cuckoo.

[Javaman]

24. I used to be a camera assistant in commercials. we would shoot in veges...

And I will tell you know how I made a bundle and it wasn't by gambling.

each crew member would get a meal stipend for lunch and dinner.

However, most of them never ate and used the money to gamble.

I don't like to gamble and find it a complete waste.

So at the end of the first day, most of the crew was broke.

I on the other hand was still liquid.

So I started lending out money. at a 20% return based on their winnings.

Some won big some lost bad, in the end, I walked away with 5k extra in my pocket. :)

[Elwood P Dowd]

26. I enjoyed visiting Vegas back when it was small

But that's been over 25 years. People tell me I would hate it today.

[theboss]

27. Vegas needs to seriously evaluate how big it wants to get

The smog problem is getting worse by the year. The water situation is alarming.

And from a strictly logistical standpoint, McCarren Airport can't handle the tourists who come already.

Still....I love the place.

[TankLV]

37. They will have another airport in 10 years in Jean...

We ARE on top of the situation....

[theboss]

41. You need a new one tomorrow though.

I can't imagine how bad it will be in ten years.

[formerrepuke]

28. Great- just as long as they all bring their own water supply with them.

[JanMichael]

32. And cost us gawd knows what in destructive sprawl.

We are screwed.

[Selatius]

39. Las Vegas needs to have an organized plan for growth, or it will become the next Los Angeles.

They need a plan for growth that is not only environmentally conscious but economically sustainable in light of dwindling oil reserves worldwide and limited water supplies regionally. You simply can't expect to build things far apart anymore without consuming more fossil fuels. They must have a mass transit system in place to alleviate the traffic and reduce pollution, and they must find new sources of water or face having to take water away from everybody else living nearby.

[entanglement]

43. Poor Bluebear

Threads can really go awry, can't they? I suppose you have to thank your stars that the LouDobbs folks haven't chimed in (yet) with something like "Yes, but illegals will steal every one of those 113,500 jobs!" :rofl:

[theboss]

45. The water level of Lake Mead is down 83 feet in 6 years

That is something worth being concerned about more than electoral politics.