Developers of the Mountain’s Edge have shown keen interest in educating people in drought –tolerant landscaping. They have plans of expanding the demonstration garden in the 3,500-acre land, in the southwestern valley. The project will give the people an idea about the trees, shrubs that are drought tolerant and show them that these landscaping can also be aesthetically pleasing.

The water smart plants are not only lush, beautiful and colorful but by adding decorative art pieces in the garden they make the yard look pleasing and attractive. The main priority of the developers was to make people understand that they could bring natural beauty to their doorsteps with out the concern of wasting water.

Nearly a dozen builders have agreed to incorporate this water saving effort and environmental friendly design into their next project by providing desert friendly front yard landscaping. The planned community at the southwestern valley will have more than 500 acres of space including parks and trails

The Las Vegas strip is ready for a complete change over. Vertical higher density properties are the only alternative for the casinos and other landowners. Basically the land that is undeveloped or underdeveloped and not earning very much for the company is being transformed into vertical property. 66 acres of underdeveloped land owned by the states largest private landowner the MGM Mirage at the Boardwalk casino site will be transformed into the $5 billion project Citycentre by the year 2009. Land being used for surface parking, land with low-rise buildings and some garages are also being converted into vertical units.

When the land prices were low, there were large surface parking for employees, guest parking garage, and lakes etc, which do not develop any revenue. With the land prices soaring very high the companies are forced to redevelop their land to maximize value for the shareholders. It will not be a surprise if in the coming years the lakes in Las Vegas are converted for higher density profitable use.

Southern Nevada’s economy is expected to undergo recession in the coming couple of months due the after-effects of Hurricane Katrina on the oil industry. The tourism industry which has seen an upward swing in its growth due to the increase in volume of the visitors, airport passengers and gaming revenue will be the worst effected due the increase in oil prices. Even though the U.S index did not show any increase and remained flat, the Las Vegas index of Leading Economic Indicators showed a continuous upswing. But the US index will eventually have effect on the Las Vegas index there are speculations that the growth in Las Vegas will be much slower.

Las Vegas has showed an increase of 7.6% in employment growth mainly due to the influx of people from the neighborhood. There are nearly 7,000 new residents added every month. After the Hurricane Katrina the closure of Gulf coast casinos has led to many casino workers coming to Las Vegas in search of jobs, which in turn has caused the rentals to increase squeezing the already thin market.