Will Las Vegas’ Explosive Growth Go on Indefinitely? All Bets Are Off

Every month, the nation’s fastest-growing metropolitan area adds about 6,000 residents, and some experts see no end to expansion for the city that disdains limits of any kinds.

The Las Vegas area is expected to be home to nearly 2.8 million residents by 2035. In fact, the area is growing so rapidly, no one really knows where the horizon lies.

From 1990 to 2000, the valley grew 83.3% to more than 1.5 million, according to Census Bureau figures. That’s a huge jump from just 15 years ago, when a little more than one-half million people lived here.

At that rate, it’s not hard to imagine suburban sprawl one day stretching from the freeway-side casinos at the California state line to the foothills north of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

But some planning and environmental experts say the resources might not be available, which could put the brakes on breakneck growth.

“Besides federal land, the limitations are air quality and availability of water,” said Ron Gregory, Clark County federal lands coordinator.

Although the Las Vegas Valley appears to hold the promise of vast openness, the federal government retains control over more than three of every four acres.

Only two large public parcels remain available for development in the fast-growing suburbs--7,500 acres in North Las Vegas and about 5,700 in southwest Henderson.

A 1998 public lands act established a boundary so that the checkerboard of 27,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management property within the Las Vegas Valley could be sold to private developers in exchange for public acquisition of land elsewhere in the state.

That boundary, like casino credit, can be expanded if needed.

“We’ll probably reach a point where we simply can’t cram any more people in because it’s a small valley,” said Somer Hollingsworth, president of the Nevada Development Authority. “But I don’t know when we’ll reach that saturation point.”

Southern Nevada has the land to support 20 to 30 years’ worth of growth, in part because housing developers are building at a residential density of six to eight dwelling units per acre, twice that of other major cities in the West, according to the Southern Nevada Regional Policy Plan.

If land is sufficient, the sky might literally be the limit.

Clark County’s already dirty air must be cleaned up, or millions of federal dollars for road construction, sewer expansion and other projects needed for growth could be lost.

Transportation and mass transit are directly related to the area’s poor air quality.

“In our 20-year plan, we have to show that all our projects combined don’t worsen air quality,” said Ingrid Reisman, spokeswoman for the Regional Transportation Commission.

Ironically, the desert and its lack of rain--the valley receives average annual rainfall of less than 4 inches--appears to be of least concern.

“Water isn’t a [growth] issue,” said Dick Wimmer, deputy general manager for the Southern Nevada Water Authority. “If it’s needed, we’ll have it there. Our fixed water supply has water needs met through 2016.”

A deal with Arizona to bank surplus water should allow Clark County to stretch out to 2030 and beyond, Wimmer said.

Jeff Harris, manager for county parks development, points to a 1990 water quality management plan that tried to find physical limitations to growth.

“We evaluated limiting factors and found that we didn’t have any.”