Las Vegas isn't Las Vegas

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 unincorporated … so… 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 anymore.

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, paid 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 its 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! 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.