For Vegas, this low average is a good thing

By Joe Schoenmann

Thursday, June 12, 2008 | 2 a.m.

In a city accustomed to occupying the lower rung of national rankings, a new report by a Washington, D.C., think tank will come as something of a shocker, if not a morale boost.

The Brookings Institution report ranks Las Vegas in the upper echelon of the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas in terms of the relatively small “carbon footprint” it creates, the few miles its residents drive and the relatively small disparity between upper- and lower-income workers.

Mark Muro, policy director in Brookings’ Metropolitan Policy Program, said Las Vegas’ high rankings are partly related to its economic engine, the Strip, where clustered design is helping it stay viable at a time when the world struggles to deal with high energy costs.

“Las Vegas is profiting from the efficiencies of a dense entertainment core,” Muro said. “And as the cost of distance, of energy, goes up, that compactness and efficiency (are) becoming more and more valued.”

As a result, Las Vegas’ carbon footprint, a measure of carbon emissions, largely from vehicle exhaust, that contribute to global warming, is one of the best in the country, according to “MetroPolicy: Shaping a New Federal Partnership for a Metropolitan Nation,” the Brookings report being released today.

Another finding touches on a factor that long has figured into Las Vegas’ reputation as a good place to make a living.

“Income inequality is a growing issue across these metropolitan areas,” said Bruce Katz, director of the Brookings Metro Policy Program.

That inequality comes through in one of Katz’s most startling statistics: The top 300,000 wage earners in the United States earn as much as the bottom 350 million.”

“What has happened is globalization rewards a few very, very well,” he said. “We have an economy that does not share prosperity equally.”

Las Vegas, though, has one of the most narrow divides between high-income and low-income earners. When the disparity in wages between the upper 90 percent and the lower 10 percent in the same 100 cities was measured, Las Vegas’ difference was the fifth lowest.

To balance salaries nationwide, one of the directives Brookings supports will target the next president.

In 2010, the tax breaks enacted by President Bush and Congress will expire. Katz said the breaks, passed under the argument that they would stimulate economic growth, “benefited the very few, and we have not had the economic returns that were promised.”

If the tax breaks are eliminated, Brookings argues, the tax dollars should be used to “modernize” the earned income tax credit. The credit, under which low-income wage earners receive larger tax refunds, “has proven itself to be a social program that works,” Katz said.

“There’s a large portion of the American workforce working very hard day in and day out and unable to make ends meet, especially as prices on food and gas continue to rise,” he said.

One troubling aspect of the MetroPolicy report points to another fairly well-known fact about Las Vegas — that it has a relatively low percentage of residents with higher education degrees.

In 2006, of the 100 metropolitan areas measured, Las Vegas had the 94th-lowest percentage of residents with bachelor’s degrees. The average was 30.6 percent, with the Washington, D.C., area ranking No. 1 with 46.1 percent, more than twice Las Vegas’ 20.2 percent.

The percentage of those with high school diplomas in Las Vegas that same year was 82.9 percent, 82nd in the country. Madison, Wis., was first with 93.9 percent, and the 100 metropolitan city average was 84.9 percent.

“While the (income disparity) is somewhat muted, educational attainment is the baseline marker for future prosperity and future social mobility, and it is clearly a cause for concern,” Muro said.

Charter schools “and other forms of educational entrepreneurship” are “efforts not often properly stimulated,” Muro said.

The report also contends that metropolitan areas need to join forces — suburbs acting independently don’t work as well as several of them working together — to enlist the help of the federal government.

“Traditionally, education is the province of state and local activity,” Muro said. “But we see a role for strategic, limited, but game-changing federal funding and support, because this is clearly a crucial issue in most metro areas.”