Everyday Las Vegas: Local Life in a Tourist Town by Rex J. Rowley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Rex Rowley is an educated observer of Las Vegas and I’m glad that he has written this commentary on the daily life of Las Vegans. This book is an important part of the development of the Las Vegas identity. Everyday Las Vegas is written from an academic geographer’s perspective. It describes several important elements of daily life in Las Vegas such as growth, sin, and religion. As someone who studies Las Vegas, and spends his winter’s there, I appreciate Rowley’s perspective.
Although Everyday Las Vegas makes an important contribution to the understanding of the contemporary cultural identity of Las Vegas, I found the depth of the author’s analysis to be shallow. This book is fun to read, but I wish the author would have applied a more rigorous scientific analysis. The author sets up readers in the introductory chapter by briefly describing his research methods. These methods include reading newspapers and other literature related to Las Vegas, the author’s own experience as a resident, and personal interviews. The author has interviewed 177 people to get a pulse on daily life in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, this is as far as the author goes to describe his research methods. I wonder how these interview subjects were chosen. Did he mail an invitation to certain types of people and then sort the responses? Did he approach interview subjects based on geographical area of the city? Did he take a cross section of different occupations? Or did he simply interview people he was personally in contact with? I suspect the author’s personal experience was a little too influential in his analysis, and that he could have used a more scientifically rigorous research method.
The author does a great job of highlighting the difference between Las Vegas and the Strip. Many books about Las Vegas history and culture focus narrowly on the Strip or gambling culture while missing all the other elements of life in Las Vegas. Certainly, the Strip and gambling are major parts of daily life in Las Vegas, but there is much to the city than tourism alone. Thanks to Rex Rowley, we have a better understanding of this fascinating city. I encourage the author to keep up the good work.
