Turn Las Vegas into Dubai

How do I turn the Las Vegas strip into a paradise into a wealthy and progressive real estate/business/investment paradise, similar to Dubai? Is this as simple as having a cooperative and intelligent leaders?

It is not required to keep Las Vegas a gambling giant.
 
Dubai isn't that well off. About a year or so back, they had to ask Abu Dhabi for a huge bail-out package. From where im standing, Las Vegas is actually in a better position.
 
The problem is one of geography. Dubai is acting as a regional entrepot for the Middle East and convenient air hub between Europe and Asia. There weren't any competitors in the Middle East because everyone else was solely a failed state, rogue terrorist regime, or conservative oil barony. So they became the only player in the game within a region that needed someone to be so.

Las Vegas doesn't have that geographical advantage. The US already has many ocean and air ports that serve a vital transportation function (LA, Chicago, New York, Miami). There is no reason for anyone to stop at Las Vegas when they can fly an extra hour and reach LA which also has lots of other advantages over Las Vegas.

Las Vegas also can't offer a better business climate than anyone else in the area because everything is still in the US. In contrast, if you don't want to do business with Dubai, you're dealing with the Iranians, some corrupt monarchy, a terrorist failed state, etc. Even if you think Las Vegas could offer a better business climate than say California, there are plenty of pro-business places you can still go to in the US, all of whom have more advantages than Las Vegas.

This isn't saying that Las Vegas can't do better than it has done IOTL. It's just that opportunities are more limited because there are many other players who will absorb talent and investment who would otherwise go to Las Vegas.
 
How do I turn the Las Vegas strip into a paradise into a wealthy and progressive real estate/business/investment paradise, similar to Dubai?

A good first step towards that goal would be for the Confederacy to win the Civil War. A confederate Las Vegas would have the kind of slaves or slaves-in-everything-but-name that Dubai is built on. Because there's really no such thing as a progressive Dubai. Google "Dubai worker slaves" and peruse some of the 4.5million results to get an idea on just how Dubai and Abu Dhabi have been so miraculously successful. When you have virtually unlimited petroleum revenues and then you pay next to nothing for construction and the staffing of your service industry... it's kind of easy to be a business paradise.
 
A good first step towards that goal would be for the Confederacy to win the Civil War. A confederate Las Vegas would have the kind of slaves or slaves-in-everything-but-name that Dubai is built on. Because there's really no such thing as a progressive Dubai. Google "Dubai worker slaves" and peruse some of the 4.5million results to get an idea on just how Dubai and Abu Dhabi have been so miraculously successful. When you have virtually unlimited petroleum revenues and then you pay next to nothing for construction and the staffing of your service industry... it's kind of easy to be a business paradise.

Nevada was part of the Union. Indeed we were thought in elementary school that Nevada was made a state when it was in part due to the fact that it was sure to go Lincoln in 1864.


But if you could have the US Balkanize, it would be a start. Even as early as the Civil War NYC was already a financial capital. While due to the fact that states have a lot of power to decide how good or bad a place they are to do business, even the most lenient laws wouldn't be enough to turn Las Vegas into Dubai.

Edit: now, making it richer and more balanced then IOTL, that's less difficult. Say have Howard Hughes get his way and his company moves out into the desert. Still doesn't make us a financial center though. Really very hard to do.
 
Regardless of butterflies, Dubai will always have something Las Vegas will not: oil. Dubai is the way it is because they knew being an oil-based rentier state was only going to last so long.
 
Las Vegas has prostitution, shows, and gambling. Yawn. Dubai offers real degeneracy and moral vulgarity that would embarrass a mere businessman. If I wanted to watch a snuff film being made - nay, to finance a snuff film - I would do it in Dubai. Vegas is for chumps. If I wanted to fuck Ayn Rand, I'd take her to Al Burj for drinks.
 
Nevada was part of the Union. Indeed we were thought in elementary school that Nevada was made a state when it was in part due to the fact that it was sure to go Lincoln in 1864.

You are aware that it is possible for the victorious side in a war to gain territory, right?
 
Even if the CSA wins and somehow acquires that land in a peace treaty, Las Vegas as we know it would be butterflied away. It was founded as a railway town in 1905 and would be a forgettable crossroads today if not for Nevada's legalization of gambling and two huge nearby public works: Hoover Dam and atomic testing facilities. In the grand scheme of things, the entire existence of Las Vegas seems like a historical fluke. It's a city that economically and environmentally should not be. But America has a habit of not caring about such details.
 

The Vulture

Banned
In the grand scheme of things, the entire existence of Las Vegas seems like a historical fluke. It's a city that economically and environmentally should not be. But America has a habit of not caring about such details.

Every day I get up in the morning, look out the window towards the mountains and the desert, and say to myself: "This was a terrible place to put a city."
 
You are aware that it is possible for the victorious side in a war to gain territory, right?
If Jefferson Davis were to ask for the pre-1860 New Mexico Territory at the neotiating table in a confederacy gains its independence TL, he would be told to shut the fuck up and consider himself lucky we're letting him keep Tennesee.
 
If Jefferson Davis were to ask for the pre-1860 New Mexico Territory at the neotiating table in a confederacy gains its independence TL, he would be told to shut the fuck up and consider himself lucky we're letting him keep Tennesee.

True. For the Confederacy to acquire it would require that they actually occupy it (fat chance; they had virtually no way to even get to it, let alone keep it once they were there) or be in such a commanding position at the end of the war (say, occupying Washington DC, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and Kansas for starters; equally unlikely, of course) that they can negotiate for it from a position of strength.
 
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