Ding Ding, round two, we’re talking Vegas baby. Home of the big fight, the high roller & the big spender and squaring up against the old seasoned pro that is sin city we’ve got Dubai, the challenger, the young upstart.
Representing these pillars of capitalism we’ve got Dave Hickey’s ‘At home in the neon’, a piece about Vegas but that strives for a different outlook on somewhere whose very name evokes a myriad of imagery. Examining Vegas through the idea of the home rather than that of the visitor is not a common one and throws up some good insights.
Jumping into the ring with Hickey we’ve got ‘Fear and money in Dubai’ by Mike Davis. I can’t decide if it’s a great right left combo or a blow below the belt invoking Hunter S. Thompson and his classic vision of Vegas (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) for me the writing’s just not in the same league it’s like a little boy claiming he’s a heavyweight, for all that its insightful it lacks any real guts to justify the title.
So we’ve got two cities, both in the desert, both built on capitalism, excess, glitz, glamour and most importantly escapism. Both can also be considered lenses, Hickey says you can use Vegas as a lens to examine the rest of America but you can use America as lenses to examine Vegas. The same is true of Dubai, the capitalist world’s reliance on oil (and the life after it), spending and that word again – escapism, is encapsulated in Dubai.
But there are some major differences, In Hickey’s Vegas you’re cheat but fairly, the odds are there on the slot machine, there ‘s no subjectivity in 7:1 odds just win or lose. Davis talks about the projected daily spends at Dubai World ($100/day each) I bet that’s not written on the entrance sign!
Money gets you everywhere in Dubai, but in Vegas its only your willingness to put chips on the table that gets you noticed, as Hickey says there are no hidden doors or VIP rooms for those not willing to play the odds and put their money on the line.
Davis talks about Dubai hiding its sins, slave labourers hidden on the edge of town, drinking only in the hotels bars populated by prostitutes that the government refuse to recognise. In the areas of Nevada that surrounds Vegas it’s perfectly legal to visit a brothel. But even in sin city there are signs of attempts to normalise the excess, it is good form to drop into the little white wedding chapel with your stripper before you bed her!
Both articles fail to land the killer blow when it comes to the current hot topic – sustainability. Just how sustainable is massive developments of glass buildings in the desert!?!? For all the moral veneer is building the world’s largest airport in a time when fewer people can afford to fly really a great idea? Building a city on the hum of an air conditioner is an idea that now seems rooted in the excess of pre 2008.
The big difference for me is Vegas seems comfortable in its own skin, entertainment Mecca. Dubai on the other can only identify its self by massive projects, tallest buildings, and largest malls. Its entire identity is surrounding in whatever the next piece of earth moving is to take place as Mike Davis says it’s all about tons of sand moved.
The bells rung who’s still standing, well I’ll give you great odds but you’ll have to pay to see them.
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