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  • Vegas, baby! It's Paradise. Not metaphorically either, this literally isn't the city of Las

  • Vegas -- look at a map and you'll see the name Paradise -- and when you visit and check

  • the weather: same thing.

  • Here is Las Vegas and here is Paradise which contains *nearly everything* people associate

  • with Las Vegas including the sign.

  • Now, you might think Paradise is just a relatively unknown city mistaken for its larger neighbor,

  • like elsewhere, but Paradise isn't a city at all: it's an unincorporated place.

  • What's that?

  • Quick government recap: citizens living in a city have to follow the rules of the city,

  • and also those of the county, and also, the state, and also the nation. It's a government

  • layer cake. And each layer collects its own taxes to enforce its own rules.

  • If some folk find these layers oppressive, they can hitch their wagons and head for open

  • lands outside the borders of any city -- to live like the rugged individualists they are

  • -- free of rules. Well, except for those of the nation, and also the state, and also the

  • county -- but moving outside a city, there's one fewer 'and also' layer because they are

  • in an unincorporated place.

  • But if they make it nice and the population grows, inevitably people want police and sewers

  • and schools and rules. And soon, a charter is written, a mayor elected and a city incorporated.

  • What makes Paradise weird is that unlike most unincorporated places that contain mostly

  • blowing tumbleweeds and perhaps a yurt where nobody wants to live, there are almost a quarter

  • million residents in Paradise in a space the size of Disney World. That density is *way*

  • past the point you'd expect people to incorporate a city. And it's not like Paradiseians just

  • couldn't bother, Paradise is almost unique in being *officially* unincorporatedso

  • why?

  • It started with the Mormons who first settled these lands in the 1880s… actually no -- jump

  • cut to: 1950! When we still tested out nuclear bombs in the open, near population centers.

  • Nevada^† recently legalized gambling and a casino empire grew in Vegas. Well -- *just*

  • outside of it to avoid city taxes. As for necessary services, the casinos were rich

  • enough to provide their own notably, using their security forces as de facto police.

  • Which might not sound on the up and up, but this was the mob running things -- and of

  • course they don't any more. Actually, really, they don't, it's all run by about two companies

  • now.^‡

  • Anyway, the official City of Las Vegas in the 1950s was on the verge of bankruptcy -- and

  • with profitable casinos touching its border, the mayor was all like, 'who are you kidding?,

  • this is totally part of Las Vegas because I say so, and you're going to pay Las Vegas

  • taxes.' The Casinos said 'no'.

  • There was a dispute that only the county, the next level of government up, could resolve.

  • The casinos, by the way, payed taxes to the county direct. So *shockingly* the county

  • told Vegas, *no* you can't annex this land and tax its businesses just because you want

  • to.

  • And to prevent Vegas from trying anything funny in the future the county created the

  • officially, unofficially, unincorporated place named Paradise.^§

  • Everything that happens within it's borders, the actual city of Las Vegas has no control

  • over --here the county rules and sets lower taxes of all sorts, which is why when new

  • casinos are built, it's generally in Paradise not Las Vegas.

  • But if all this makes you think that the origin of Paradise was just some kind of city-sized

  • tax dodge... you're right!

  • This episode is brought to you by Audible.com-- who has over a hundred-and-eighty-thousand

  • audiobooks for you to listen to. I listen to *a lot* of audiobooks every year, and I

  • use Audible to do it. And I am going to recommend to you the book that I listened to on my most

  • recent vacation to Las Vegas, which wasThe Graveyard Bookby Neil Gaiman.

  • It’s a fictional story, so I don’t really want to give any spoilers -- let’s just

  • say that Neil Gaiman is an excellent storyteller and he has an excellent narrating voice to

  • go along with it. And he really lends personalities to all of the characters that he creates,

  • in the unique way that only an author can. If you are looking for a fun, enjoyable story;

  • this one gets my thumbs up!

  • Go to Audible.com/grey and you can listen to it for free or any other audiobook that

  • you want for free, and get a 30-day trial. So, go to Audible.com/grey, that’s G-R-E-Y,

  • to get your free audiobook -- Make itThe Graveyard Bookperhaps and a 30-day trial.

  • If youve never gotten into the world of audiobooks, now is the time to try it.

  • Now before you go around correcting everybody that your vacation was in Paradise, not Las

  • Vegas, Las Vegas city and Paradise are both in Las Vegas Valley, so you can say you went

  • to Las Vegas, while never setting foot in Las Vegas, and still be technically correct

  • that you went to Las Vegas.

Vegas, baby! It's Paradise. Not metaphorically either, this literally isn't the city of Las

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