Vegas' flush economy to fuel more jobs, growth

In every measurable way, Las Vegas and Clark County continued the breakneck pace of growth last year that has blessed and burdened Southern Nevada for well over a decade.

And government agencies -- federal, state, county and local -- expect that pace of growth to continue largely unabated into the year 2000.

That growth is fueled by jobs, and the number of jobs in the region continues to grow. Despite a loss of jobs in mining, Nevada's second-largest industry, the total number of jobs in the state grew to nearly 970,000 by July -- an increase fueled by the gaming industry, analysts with the Nevada Department of Employment say.

For the year 2000, growth will continue, predicted Keith Schwer, director of UNLV's Business and Economic Research Center. Schwer puts together county, state and federal economic and population data to look to the future -- and he sees more jobs, and more people, for the valley for at least the next decade.

However, the pace of growth will likely dip somewhat this year, he predicts.

"The expectation for both employment and populations (increases) are to be below '99, but still strong," he says. Schwer expects a 5.3 percent increase in jobs and a population increase of 5 percent for the metropolitan region -- still at the top of the national picture.

Those figures are down slightly from 1999's rate of 5.9 percent job growth and 6 percent population growth.

Most employment sectors are growing, Schwer says, but gaming and hotel jobs are the core to the increases. The total increase between October 1998 and October 1999 was 44,000 jobs -- about one-third of those are directly in the hotels and casinos of the region.

Don't expect the long-term trend to suddenly reverse, Schwer says.

"To be sure, every year is not going to be 1999," he says. "Increasingly, it will be difficult to record high percentages of growth ... As you get bigger, to get the same percentage increase, you have to get even bigger increases in absolute numbers."

If the increasingly congested roads of the region, the spreading master-planned communities and appearance of more and more strip malls throughout the urban area aren't enough evidence of growth, the U.S. Census Bureau recently released three studies that put Nevada and the Las Vegas area at the very top for growth in the country.

First came the news that Nevada led the nation in the number of new homes going up -- a 48 percent rise between 1990 and 1998. Observers attributed most of those new homes to the sprawling master-planned communities housing the hundreds of thousands of new workers that flocked to the Las Vegas Valley in the last decade.

Then came the results of the bureau's study of metropolitan regions, which found that the Las Vegas area has had a 55 percent growth rate since 1990 -- by far the largest in the country.

Finally came the state-by-state estimates, which found that Nevada had the highest rate of growth for any state for the 14th consecutive year.

A formal, mail-it-in or get a knock on your door census count will begin early this year, and will likely bring Southern Nevada a new congressman. The census also is expected to provide the Las Vegas area a veto-proof majority in the state Legislature after reapportionment next year.

Along with the growth have come problems, notably frustration and congestion on Southern Nevada's roadways and steadily worsening air pollution.

Governments are working to at least check both problems. For the roads, ambitious projects to widen and expand the Las Vegas Beltway, U.S. 95 and Interstate 15 -- along with corrections to the chronic headache dubbed the Spaghetti Bowl -- are hoped to alleviate the traffic conundrum.

But problems with air pollution threaten not only the health of valley residents -- the problems even threaten the ability to complete the roadwork.

The Environmental Protection Agency has put valley governments on a timeline to clean up fine dust and carbon monoxide pollution. Failure to design a federally approved plan in the coming months would put a stop to further road planning, and could lead to a cutoff in federal funding and ultimately, a takeover of the local regional planning apparatus.

But while county and city officials through the region struggle to grapple with the negative effects of growth, that growth isn't slowing.

"We are cautiously optimistic that 1999 is going to set a record for new home sales for metropolitan Las Vegas," said Monica Caruso, a spokeswoman for the Southern Nevada Home Builders Association.

She said all the numbers aren't in yet, but her organization expects 21,000 new home sales for 1999 -- another record-shattering year. This follows last year's record for new home sales, 20,229.

By the end of October new home sales in the region were already up 6 percent over the previous year. And mild weather encouraged home shoppers throughout the rest of the year, Caruso said.

For "the crystal ball stuff," Caruso said her organization expects the trend to continue.

"The feeling is that we're going to have a very good year in 2000," she said. "We still continue to see strong job growth, population increase."

The job growth is tied to the national economy, which also looks strong. A record-setting 106 months of economic expansion shows few signs of slowing, many economists believe.

There are a few bumps on the horizon. The home builders association, for example, believes that home prices may go up this year, continuing a trend that began in 1999.

As of October the median price for a new home in the Las Vegas Valley was just shy of $144,000 -- up 8 percent over the previous year, Caruso said.

The cost of land is going up, costs associated with fees are increasing for home builders and developers, and mortgage rates are inching up -- all indicators that home prices may continue to rise next year, she said.

"Costs are going to be a big factor next year on the business side of the equation, and we're not sure how that's going to translate to the customer side," Caruso said.

But in part fueled by retirees moving to the region -- almost 40 percent of the home market, she said -- "We still see that demand for housing."

To find the fastest-growing part of the fastest-growing region in the fastest- growing state, many point to booming Henderson on the south side of the valley's urbanized area.

The State Demographers Office estimated in November that Henderson had more than 177,000 people in it, inching past Reno to become the state's second- largest city.

The announcement itself didn't come as a surprise, but observers said there's still room for wonder.

"I guess I've been surprised by the pace of growth over the last four or five years," said Danny Sanders, owner of a Henderson construction company and member of the city's planning board. "We used to feel that people looked down on us as a city ... Now, we really feel it's the preferred place to live."

Sanders predicted that growth will continue as master-planned communities continue to expand.

He cited expansion or new construction for Anthem projects, Seven Hills, Green Valley Ranch and Lake Las Vegas as hubs for more housing. A project on land owned by Basic Management Inc. could put 6,000 new homes in the city, and there are "others that I foresee," Sanders said.

But some people would be more than happy to see the Las Vegas Valley's pace of growth slow down. Environmentalists said their long-standing concerns about the impact of growth are finally attracting public attention -- in large part because people are feeling the impact personally.

"If they continue along at this rate, there is simply no way we can sustain this lifestyle," said Marcia Forkos, chairwoman of the local Sierra Club group. The local organization has been aided by the national club, which has made urban sprawl a top priority.

"People are forgetting that they came here for a reason ... We're losing that reason for living here," said Forkos, who moved here in the early 1970s.

Forkos said she now is regularly bothered by respiratory problems that used to be rare. She blames it on the increase in air pollution, and even of the humidity over the valley -- humidity fueled by thousands of sprinklers spraying the Colorado River over lawns and landscaping.

"People want their grass, they want their pools," she said. "We have more humidity than we ever did before."

Forkos, along with other environmentalists, want more incentives for people to live inside the already urbanized area in the valley in order to stop the growth of master-planned communities on the edges of the valley. She also would like to see more and better mass-transit alternatives.

Both are goals officially embraced by policy makers on the regional, state and federal levels. But Forkos fears that official action may be too little, too late to stop the negative effects of growth.

"I don't see people taking it seriously. We need to start in elementary school, teaching about the environmental process ... If we could all just do one little thing, it would benefit us all in the long run."

"We've been talking about these things for years," Forkos said. "I see nothing getting done ... We think we have sort of a large valley, but we don't. I would like to personally see developers and environmentalists work hand-in-hand."

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