The Ten Most Dynamic Cities

Beyond the Strip

Long the fastest-growing metropolis in America, Sin City is building more than casinos.

If America is the world capital of reinvention, then Las Vegas is its heart. Every year it attracts tens of thousands of new residents, looking for a new life, a big break, a second chance. And increasingly, they are searching beyond the famous casinos.

Sin City is branching out. The share of Vegas residents who work in the resort industry has fallen from 26.2 percent to 19.8 percent in the last decade, as more options emerge. The casinos remain a magnet for everyone from downsized industrial workers to retirees and Latino immigrants. But the city is increasingly drawing spinoff industries in high tech, finance and manufacturing, often lured to a little-known fringe benefit of gambling. Thanks to the 24/7 needs of the casinos, Vegas boasts one of the best broadband- telecommunications networks in the United States.

City fathers are starting to press this advantage. Companies like Qualcomm now use Vegas as a logistics tracking hub. IGT and Sega are developing virtual gaming technology here rather than in traditional entertainment hubs like Los Angeles. The most favorable state-tax regime in the United States (no or low corporate, personal income and payroll taxes) helps, especially compared with the rising costs, regulation and real-estate prices in neighboring California. The Nevada Development Authority estimates that 40 to 50 percent of the businesses it has recruited in recent years relocated from California.

City leaders are also doing what they can to fuel the nascent bio-tech and health-services sector. Grants and research opportunities connected to the Nevada Cancer Institute, opened nine months ago, have already attracted 15 new life-sciences companies to the Vegas area. A new science and tech park at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, aims to generate top tech talent.