Nestled in the northern stretch of the Las Vegas Valley, the city of North Las Vegas provides a unique counterpoint to its sister metropolis. A growing, family-oriented town, North Las Vegas has been largely comprised of working class folks since its incorporation in 1946.

In the last decade, the city has grown by leaps and bounds, and has greatly diversified its demographics. In addition to industrial plants and stark desert scenes, there are now lushly landscaped communities and lavish resorts. With the I-15 and I-215 highways acting as veins through which residents can flow from jobs to schools to other cities, North Las Vegas is no longer the small town it once was.

Of course, like its namesake, North Las Vegas has struggled to accommodate the mass influx of people who have built their lives and livelihoods in the north. The city was one of those hit hardest by the recession when the housing market crashed in 2007, and has struggled to stay the course in the long months since.

Up and Out
Before the recession’s gloom settled over the country, North Las Vegas was a vibrant, thriving city that had drawn 212,114 people to its neighborhoods. The city developed quickly, with constant construction to keep up with the growth patterns. Nellis Air Force Base and Cannery Casino Hotel provided employment bases for the city’s residents.

Part of that expansion was due to the purchase of land from the federal government. Though North Las Vegas sits atop a large swath of desert, a majority of that land is federally owned. When the Bureau of Land Management began selling parcels in the city, growth exploded. Then there were jobs.

“I think the population growth is a function of two things: One certainly is the activity that occurs on the Strip, where you have a number of large casinos being constructed and a number of hotel rooms being added,” said North Las Vegas City Manager Gregory Rose. “People have to have a person to maintain those rooms. That’s one end of it. The other end is us trying to diversify our economy with high-tech companies bringing jobs into the community, and as a result of that, people moving here for those opportunities.”

North Las Vegas has swiftly transformed from a quiet extension of Las Vegas to a town with its own personality and own possibilities.

“There have been very positive changes for us in the standpoint that we were really attempting to change the community from what it was in the past—primarily a blue collar community—to a city that is really more attractive to everyone, blue collar and white collar as well,” Rose said. “It has added additional ties, especially with the casino out at Aliante recently, but it has made us just a more attractive community to live and to work.”

Development projects in the north have strived to bring a sense of cohesion to the city. Aliante is a master-planned community from which sprung a casino and a host of other lucrative projects. City officials hope to replicate that success with the in-progress Park Highlands community.

However, the city’s expansion has slowed since the recession began. Though North Las Vegas continues to attract young workers and first-time homebuyers, the city is hurting as much, if not more, as others around the nation are. During this painful time, city officials are looking to steer North Las Vegas in the direction of higher-paying jobs and safer communities. A new City Hall recently broke ground in what was formerly a rundown neighborhood, both to transform a blighted area and also to provide construction jobs to its residents. The project is one example of the effort North Las Vegas is making to make the future a bit brighter.

“There have been tremendous changes for the good and for the bad,” said Rose. “Certainly the rapid growth that we experienced around 2004 to 2005 was a time period that was the height of that growth, and now today seeing it on the other end of where we’re still growing but not nearly as rapidly. When you’re looking at 2004 to 2005 when our growth was around 9 percent 10 percent a year to today where it is roughly 1 or 2 percent a year—that’s a tremendous swing.

All Falls Down
When the housing bubble burst, North Las Vegas was one of the cities most impacted by the nation’s wave of foreclosures. According to a report from San Diego tracking firm DataQuick Information Systems released earlier this year, North Las Vegas saw a steep decline in home prices in 2008 over 2007, with one of its zip codes, 89030, experiencing a 73 percent drop.

“From a standpoint of the impact it has had on our finances, our revenues coming in and subsequently the services we provide, it has had a negative impact,” Rose said. “If you look at the multiplier effect, the construction industry, the sales tax that would typically be generated from the construction of new homes, as well as the people that would move here to occupy those homes… those things certainly have to do with the property taxes, and the assessed values of the homes have declined because of that.”

Rose said he largely attributes the high number of foreclosures to investors who took advantage of the affordable housing market in order to capitalize on rising home values.

“We were seen as a tremendous investment,” Rose said. “When the housing boom was occurring, a number of homes were flipped, so some people made it pretty well through that process.

“The people who came in on the tail end were not able to flip those. Then the market crashed.”

The city has taken action to fight the harmful effects that foreclosures have had on the communities of North Las Vegas. City officials are currently working to make information and resources known to homebuyers who are underwater on their payments.

North Las Vegas was also the recipient of $8.6 million in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program.

The city will disperse the funds to non-profit organizations seeking to purchase and redevelop foreclosed homes that have become blights in zip codes such as 89031, 89032 and 89081. Those zip codes have seen the highest rate of foreclosures in the city.

“As a whole, we’re focusing programs on trying to keep people in their homes and trying to provide them with information about the various federal resources that are available to them,” Rose said. “For first-time homebuyers, it’s a tremendous time to get a tax credit.”

The city recently hosted two educational forums, one each for English speakers and Spanish speakers, in order to inform residents of their options.

Ch-Ch-Changes
The future of North Las Vegas is largely dependant on economic variables. The city is home to many Strip resort employees who have been affected by downsizing and cutbacks, which has in turn impacted the city’s housing market and tax revenues.

“If the economy stays the way it is, we will likely not see rapid growth,” Rose said. “We’re so tied to the tourism market that I don’t see that changing. If the economy turns around drastically, there’s more disposable income that people will have, and Vegas becomes more attractive, not just in the amount of people coming here, but in the amount of money that people spend.”

Voters recently chose city councilwoman Shari Buck to lead the city as mayor. Buck took office July 1. During her campaign, she promised to attract more businesses to the city and said she would bring her experience as both a 10-year member of the city council and a native of North Las Vegas to the table.

“Having grown up in North Las Vegas my whole life, I’m really happy with where we are today compared with where we came from,” Buck said during a May 27 debate with mayoral candidate and fellow city council member William Robinson. “I think we’re doing pretty well. We have some tough challenges here, but I know as a city, as we work together, we can meet those challenges.”

Those challenges include the future of the city’s expansion. Park Highlands is in the early stages of development (though construction has been halted due to economic factors), and Boyd Gaming has proposed to build a casino in the neighborhood. Boyd’s application is currently before the city council.

The city of North Las Vegas has experienced a whirlwind of change in the decades since its inception, and Rose said he hopes the one impression people take away from his town is that it truly is “your community of choice.”

By Caitlin McGarry

More Featured Articles