Like the Emerald City, Las Vegas glitters brightly in the vast Nevada desert, a haven for refugees from the ordinary America. A hip, iconic playground that exports nothing, it nonetheless earns billions from consumer services alone As other cities try to mirror its success, and huge respectable corporations like Coca-Cola invest in a piece of the pie, the very traits that have ostracized Las Vegas in the past - hedonism, money worship and permissiveness have today made it America's fastest growing urban centre. From the gambling-driven, mob-run Sin City of the 1940s to the corporatization of the Strip as a respectable family entertainment centre after the 1970s, Las Vegas has shown incredible economic resilience and adaptability. This full account of America's new dream capital, this book shows how Las Vegas gambled on the post-industrial service economy, well before the rest of the country knew it was coming, and won.