I'm not faulting anything about Las Vegas, its attractions, or its people. Just its location. It sucks up huge amounts of water and energy that could be far more wisely used than creating a playground in the middle of the desert. We out west live and die by our water. Such extravagant waste seems criminal to me.
Never been to Vegas, afraid of what will happen to me if I go there. I'm strong, and I can resist anything, except temptation usually does me in (apologies to Groucho).
But back to torching Vegas ... it's a tough issue in my mind. It grew up around a spring or creek or something, and was a thriving town/city long before it became a playground. When I think hard about whether the playsters have the right to use those resources, it turns into one of those thin-edge-of-the-wedge kind of things that seem to be one of my failings. OK, let's say it's wrong for the hotels to be there. How about the hotels in Florida, messing up the Everglades and all? Or pretty much all of Manhattan, built on a small island with a fragile ecosystem? Who gets to decide whether the stimulus for development (and its inevitable resource destruction) is bad (gambling, organized crime, Celine Dion, etc.), or OK? The answer to me is obvious (I should be the one!), but I suppose others may disagree for one reason or another.
It's kind of like my mom's condo area in Rockland Co., NY, about 20 miles north of NYC. When she bought it 20 years ago, there were about 50 units stuck in the middle of what seemed like the primeval forest that went on forever. Now, you can't see a single tree for all the newer condo units that have been built around hers. She has complained about how wrong it was to build up the new units, nature is being destroyed and all. But implicit in all that of course is that it was OK to build her unit ...
I don't know, it's hard for me to figure these things out. Maybe the best thing is to just be smart about the choices we have yet to make. That's hard enough for me!!
Does anyone out there have a good way to figure these sort of things out? Maybe we need a resident board ethicist