Author(s)

J. Aguero, S. Conway & I. Navis

Abstract

Clark County, Nevada, home to the world-famous Las Vegas Strip, is arguably the most tourism-dependent economy in the United States. Such dependence has both positive and negative economic, fiscal, and social ramifications. The issue of core-industry sustainability is particularly germane, as 30% of the region’s workforce is directly employed in the leisure and hospitality industry and where that sector accounts for the lion’s share of state and local tax collections. This paper discusses the evolution of the Clark County, Nevada Monitoring Program, a broad-based community indicator system originally designed to monitor the potential impacts of transportation and storage of high-level nuclear waste at a proposed nuclear waste repository. Further, the paper focuses on the program’s applications in evaluating diversity issues as they relate to sustainability in this tourism-dependent economy. Keywords: community monitoring, sustainable tourism, Las Vegas, economic impact, nuclear waste, community indicators. 1 Introduction Since 1988, Clark County, Nevada (\“Clark County” or \“the County”) has been designated by the Department of Energy (\“DOE”) as an \“Affected Unit of Local Government” (\“AULG”). The AULG designation is an acknowledgement by the federal government that activities associated with the Yucca Mountain proposal could result in considerable impacts on Clark County residents and the community as a whole. As an AULG, Clark County is authorized to identify

Keywords

community monitoring, sustainable tourism, Las Vegas, economic impact, nuclear waste, community indicators.