Leaving Las Vegas
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7/28/2010
Born and raised in Vegas, my children are 3rd generation Las Vegans. I have watched this city morph from a sleepy western town to the Babylon of the western hemisphere. In the 70s and 80s, population was a tenth of what it is today. Horseback riding, fishing at Lake Mead, sledding at Mt. Charleston, beautiful orange and pink desert sunsets, attending good schools with kids you've always grown up with. The tight conservative community pride has been overtaken with transient people, both singles and retirees that have already raised there families elsewhere. They outnumber natives and so the vote goes....no new children's hospitals, or schools or parks, or fire.....The university is a Mickey Mouse school, you'll never get taken seriously elsewhere. The children's education is some of the worst in the nation. We lead as highest suicide rates, drop-out rates, teen pregnancy, most dangerous city, highest foreclosure rate, unhealthiest city. Our air quality is bad, as is what little water we have left. Just a dry baren wasteland. You cannot escape the smut pushers on the strip, the tacky and usually half-nude billboard advertisements in every direction or on the back of the cabs. Horrible trafic, lack of culture, art and any true diversity. Most of the city councel/county commisioners have been arrested for embezzlement, taking bribes, sexual favors and the like. The Mayor is more interested in pleasing tourists than the constiuants, drinking and building a mob museum. The locals no longer have a say, even with a vote. This isn't the "old Vegas" you see on tv. No more Sinatra, mahogany bars with Martinis and a quiet charm. No more warm and dry summers. Neon-flash-tackiness and loud obnoxious drunks. An overbuilt city of cookie-cutter-stucco homes and gated-block walls and polluted skies keep the city scorching in 115 degrees for a nice 6 months of summer (this milder spring not withstanding). Thank God we are leaving next year. No more paying tuition for overprice private schools that ar the lesser of two evils. No more sex on every corner. I'm getting my family out before the water runs out and city is overtaken by illegals.
christine | Paradise, NV