Here Today, Reno Tomorrow : Flashy Life Style of Town Draws Many Residents, but Few Stay Permanently

There were four apartments overlooking Reno in a building identical to scores of others in the complex.

The grounds were green, the rooms spacious, the rents--$585 or more--considered fairly high for the city. It was not for fly-by-nights.

A couple moved in, signing a three-month lease. Almost two years passed, along with the moving vans.

A young man lived downstairs. He married and moved to San Francisco.

Another couple moved in downstairs. They married and moved to Sacramento.

A man, his wife and a child then moved in.

Man and Daughter

Next door, a middle-age man lived with his daughter, but they moved out to return to a central Nevada town of about 200 people because he said Reno was getting too big.

A couple moved in there, and out. Another couple moved in.

Downstairs from them, three different tenants came and went.

Such is Reno. If you don’t like the people, wait to see whom tomorrow brings.

The seasonal fluctuations in the gaming industry and tourist business, a flashy life style particularly attractive to the young and single, the city’s sudden spurts of growth and development, its relative isolation and small size of fewer than 200,000 people are reasons drawing the U-Hauls off Interstate 80 after coming over the mountains or through the desert.

Much the same conditions exist in Reno’s sister city 500 miles to the south, Las Vegas.

According to 1980 Census figures, perhaps half of the state’s residents had moved between 1975 and 1980. The national average was around 12%. One-third of Washoe County’s residents, largely the Reno area, lived outside the state in 1975.

Much of the movement is related to the need for workers to man the state’s 24-hour casinos. It is estimated that one of every three jobs in the state is in the tourist industry, which fluctuates with the seasons.

Jim Hanna, in the state Employment Security Research division, says the peak for the gaming industry in Reno is July and August, the low in January. In Las Vegas, the peak is October.

In Reno, the highest number of jobs in the service sector will be around 49,500, with 43,400 at the slowest period, Hanna said. In Las Vegas, 118,700 jobs will shrink to 111,200.

That means almost 14,000 jobs end as tourism dwindles.

In addition, the Reno gaming industry has an annual turnover of 1.4, meaning that 1.4 people are hired each year to fill one job. In 1984, a total of 65,781 people were hired in the service sector, including gaming, for 45,700 jobs. In the trade sector, such as taverns and gas stations, 36,000 people were hired for 26,200 jobs.

In Las Vegas, 143,911 people were hired for 107,507 jobs.

With so much movement, “native Nevadan” is a term often used to connote stability, the rock in the desert. Native Nevadans, it has been implied, will make good justices for the state Supreme Court, or run trustworthy businesses because they are here to stay.

“I think in a way there are two Renos, or two Nevadas,” said James Richardson, a sociology professor at the University of Nevada, Reno.

“There is a core of people who live here for longer periods of time and get involved. Even those folks end up getting impacted by the kind of state we live in,” he said. “Even the best families end up with their share of alcoholics, suicides and compulsive gambling.

“Then there’s this other Nevada of people who come through here. They never settle down,” he said. “Even if they stay here, they keep moving around and never put down roots.

“Something like 45% of the state’s residents live in rental units.”

Month-to-Month Living

The city’s largest apartment complex offers 704 units on month-to-month leases. Manager Greg Lee says it works out well for tenants, who include “a lot of casino people.”

Turnover is even higher at complexes around town with shared living arrangements in clusters of four private rooms opening onto one kitchen and two bathrooms.

Richardson said the instability is heightened by Nevada’s all-night bars and casinos, legal brothels and general nonstop fast pace.

“If you’re not careful you can get caught up in this dream world, this tourist mentality,” he said. “There’s something happening 24 hours a day.

“The fact that pubs close in England at 11 at night means you can’t drink anytime after that,” he said in comparison. “There are no structural impediments here. Anytime you want to do it, you can do it.

“Most of the people I know lead normal lives because they superimpose a structure on their lives. That’s an extra pressure on the people in Nevada,” Richardson said. “You have to do it yourself, because there’s no set of laws out there saying you can’t get a prostitute or can’t gamble.

“I think its unethical for clubs to (run ads) to double your paycheck,” he said. “The very idea of a man taking his check into a gambling establishment and putting it on the line, knowing the odds are against you, that’s taking money out of their kids’ mouths.

“It’s really a classic statement of how far Nevada is from normal living,” he said.

“It’s a concern for parents who raise kids here. What do they think America is like?”

America is, in part, a one-acre display of furniture waiting to be rented. Rochelle Mazzone presides over the showroom.

“It’s considered a good volume for the market,” she said of the business.

“We’re getting more from Washington and Oregon. They’ve heard there’s lots of jobs.”

“It’s seasonal like anything else,” said Paul Herschbach of his moving business. “They either make it or it breaks them and they move back (home).”

He has seen a lot from Oregon recently. “Logging is down, so they figure they’ll try something different.”

But he doesn’t see a lot of the movement. “The young and single move themselves.”

The moving van is back at the unit where the couple have seen all of their neighbors come and go. After two years, the couple are moving back East.