Las Vegas Urban Living, Culture and History Could And Should Be Promoted To Tourists

It turns out that one of our regular readers is the owner of ACCESSVEGAS, which is a tourist oriented site. Since we have so many out of town readers, who come to Las Vegas,and all of our in town friends get visitors, we thought you should know about this. There’s a wealth of what to do, where to go, and everything else for the tourist.

We’ve suggested that he build a page or 20 about “cultural tourism” as another way for us to get the word out that there’s incredible homes and neighborhoods in the urban core of Las Vegas. There’s a wealth of “googie” and mid century modern and pre-war that any architectural or cultural tourist would love to know about.

And yes, there is a whole lot of people who travel just to see and feel and live the architecture, history and culture of where they’re visiting. I’m one of them! It’s another WHOLE MARKET SEGMENT that should be explored. I hear many of the folks at the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority read VVV regularly so I’m giving them a hint.

We found out about Ted and his ACCESSVEGAS website when he posted this great comment to our “100 worst hit zipcodes” post from the other day. His comment says it all about urban living in Las Vegas, so I decided to cut and paste it into a real post.

Ted Newkirk wrote:

Thanks so much for getting the truth out about this! I’m a 15 year resident who sold in a vintage area (89119) at the top of the boom, looked around at new condos, and am now strongly looking at moving back into a vintage area.

Too many benefits to list:

* Bigger lots on the homes. I really don’t want to have to practically turn sideways to squeeze between my house and my neighbors. I like having a back yard. I like that my windows don’t look into the wall of my neighbor’s house 5 feet away.

* Vintage neighborhoods are closer to everything, and with Las Vegas traffic getting worse by the day… that is huge. Established neighborhoods are close to all types of everyday shopping and many vintage neighborhoods on the east side of town are within 10-15 minutes of The Strip (for those in tourism industry) and McCarran (for those whose business involves travel).

* Downtown is on the verge of booming. I’ve been saying it for years… and it is getting close. Already so many new condos, restaurants, bars and even downtown casino properties are looking at upgrading.

* You can get to know your neighbors, and they may often be established locals. The majority of the new residents and investors bought in new neighborhoods. Now these investment homes sit empty or are rented out. Not the house you want next door.

* Home construction quality – Sure, buying in a older neighborhood may mean that you’ll have a small issue or upgrade to take care of. But… these homes were built back when the workmen actually were taking some time to build a decent home. Stories about complaints and lawsuits among new homes are rampant. I’d rather move into a solid home that may need a few hundred dollars worth of issues fixed over the course of the next few years than move into a box that was slammed up during a building boom.

Thanks for bringing this issue to the public. You are on the money.

Thank YOU, Ted!