Las Vegas, NV

The construction market in Las Vegas punches above its weight, with the city seemingly building a new skyline every ten years.

The area’s casinos, convention centers, and resorts constantly reinvent themselves to cater to the more than 30 million people who visit in a typical year. Accommodating them is a massive sector of the local economy, but COVID-19 has led to a redoubling of efforts to diversify.  

The casinos began moving just outside the Las Vegas city limits to avoid paying city taxes in the 1990s. The famous Las Vegas Strip is actually in neighboring Paradise, which is the country’s most populous unincorporated city. Since then, officials in Las Vegas have been courting other industries to make up for the drop in revenue. This began with tax incentives and has recently turned to flashy office parks. A few large tech companies are now headquartered in Las Vegas and officials hope that more will come as Silicon Valley becomes more expensive. Bringing in these companies (and their workers) would add some much-needed diversity to the economy and a lot of money. These efforts are beginning to bear fruit, although it is still too early to say for certain how the long-term play toward diversification will pan out.

* Other structures include religious buildings, amusement, government communications, and public recreation projects.