LAS VEGAS

Sin City is not all it seems. Beyond the intoxicating whirligig of casinos, concerts and costumed performers, local neighbourhoods are blooming with street art, while hiking trails offer desert vistas

- CELESTE BRASH

Las Vegas is a monument to human ingenuity and vice; capitalist performance art let loose in the outer reaches of the Mojave Desert; a neon-lit oasis existing solely to entertain us. Each year, up to 40 million people visit the city of just 635,000 residents that's home to the world's biggest tourist trap: the Strip. Many travellers might feel predisposed to dislike Sin City for its brashness, its lurid aesthetic, its populist appeal - but I find its unique brew of hedonism and heart intoxicating.

My first stop is the residential Arts District. In March 2020, when casinos on the Strip were closed for an record six weeks in response to the pandemic, the focus shifted to other neighbourhoods. Consequentially, here and in Downtown, local artists were hired to paint murals. Today, Frida Kahlo smiles down on me on a Main Street full of small businesses, including craft breweries and vintage clothes shops. Many Americans are now moving to Vegas; it's not just the sunshine, good salaries, and affordable housing that lure them, but the thriving culinary scene and community feel.

The Vegas that most visitors flock to is the Strip, a cartoonish theme park of a boulevard serving up a sensory overload. As a blonde American gondolier sings to me, beautifully, in Italian, as she paddles me around The Venetian Las Vegas hotel, it dawns on me: this place isn’t meant to be authentic; it’s a world of make-believe.