Las Vegas is a good example of a town created by a government project.

[kemah]

If it wasn't for Hoover Dam, Vegas would not exist. Just another small down in the desert. Cheap hydroelectric power and Lake Meade are the reason Vegas can exist. The Hoover Dam workers would go to Vegas to gamble, drink, and hook up with hookers. The government housing for the workers did not allow such activities.

[XemaSab]

1. If you're arguing that government projects can be good

I'm not sure you chose the best example to make your case.

[MindPilot]

2. Might not be the best example...

Vegas is not all that popular in DU-ville.

[Live and Learn]

4. I think the point is that it is popular on

the dark side and might (doubtful) show them that government projects work for them too.

[leveymg]

3. Also have to thank Bugsy Seigel for development capital and the "vision thing."

Better call the Chicago Mob, "Job Creators." Or, else.

[Egalitarian Thug]

5. Both Nevada and Arizona owe their existence as major cities to the government.

Arizona was a solidly Democratic state, and territory before that, mostly because Washington kept appointing republican governors. They sent people like Carl Hayden and Richard McCormick to bring home the bacon, and they did.

Boulder Dam, Roosevelt Dam, and the Central Arizona projects are why 5+M people can live there. Without huge government expense there would be nothing but an atrophied mining industry and some subsistence farming.

[HuckleB]

6. The Dam helped.

Still, prohibition, and then the end of prohibition, actually had far more to do with it, especially in terms of longevity. Yeah, I know. Still government acts. Got it.

[dimbear]

7. My aunt and uncle lived there when it was just a wide spot in the brush.

I vouch for your story.

[Cerridwen]

8. Vegas is a good example of what happens when

a mormon banker convinces the banking industry that it's okay to do banking business with the mob and how greed, the LOVE of money, can be manipulated into creating a town in the fucking desert.

All the rest is just a rendition of water, grazing, and mining interests manipulating the government lands offices in the US southwest.

Signed,

A native Las Vegan.

[doohnibor]

9. If you want to see Las Vegas without Boulder Dam*, look west

Look on the WEST side of Mt. Charleston to see what is possible without abundant water and electricity. Pahrump is a good size town, but it's never going to be able to support one high-rise resort, let alone dozens. Without big government projects, Las Vegas and Phoenix would be more like Pahrump and Kingman, more than just jackrabbits, but NOT big cities.

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*If you are an FDR New Dealer type, you will refer to it by its proper name, Boulder Dam, just as nowadays we refer to the DC airport as Washington National instead of humoring the Republican fetish of naming stuff after their disasters.

[bhikkhu]

10. The Grand Coulee Dam, and the US aviation industry are a better example

The dam provided the power to smelt the aluminum and build the planes with which we won WWII. And transformed the economy of the whole NW... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Coulee_Dam

[Igel]

11. So you're saying that a government prohibition was a positive act of creation.

After all, if not for the ban on drinking and gambling in government housing ...

So if we want to help things, we should prohibit more things?


Still, the entire argument misses the main point. Idee fixe to the point of monomania on both sides. (Can somebody please help produce a corpus callosum in the body politic?)