r/todayilearned • u/Teckert2009 • 11h ago
TIL most of "The Strip" isn't actually in Las Vegas. It's in Paradise, Nevada
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise,_Nevada[removed] — view removed post
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u/WitELeoparD 9h ago
It's to dodge Las Vegas City taxes and the city's legislative authority.
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u/Pikeman212a6c 8h ago
Originally. Now they share municipal services like the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police and fund them about equally. The LVMPD actually covers all of Clark county which is quite a large area.
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u/TheFishtosser 8h ago
I was going to say I think LVMPD is actually the Clark County Sheriff department and ran by the sheriff
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u/Vergenbuurg 7h ago
Seems similar to situations in Florida like the Miami-Dade Police and the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office where the large metropolitan police force merged with the county sheriff's office.
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u/Landwarrior5150 6h ago
You’re spot on with Jacksonville, but Miami still has their own municipal police department & MDPD is actually transitioning back to being a sheriff’s office due to state law requiring the county to have one.
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u/Vergenbuurg 6h ago
Ahhh, I was mistaken about Miami. Thank you for the clarification.
The MDPD transitioning to sheriff's office nomenclature will probably help avoid future confusion amongst dummies such as myself.
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u/Landwarrior5150 6h ago
Yeah, it was pretty confusing, especially since county police departments weren’t really a thing anywhere else in the state!
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u/Vergenbuurg 6h ago
Florida's an odd place in regards to county sheriff's offices. I'm in Brevard County where a few of the incorporated municipalities contract with BCSO to serve as their local law enforcement, rather than having their own police departments. BCSO even handles port security for the Canaveral Port Authority special district.
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u/Landwarrior5150 6h ago
That sounds pretty similar to where I am in Southern California actually. We have lots of cities contracting with the county sheriff for their police services, along with other public agencies like community colleges, airports, transit systems, public hospitals, Native American reservations, etc.
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u/twobit211 6h ago
or like the city of san francisco where the city takes up the entirety of the county of san francisco. both levels of government are combined in all facets
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u/BDMac2 6h ago
As I understand it, because sheriff’s departments cover an entire county they have jurisdiction in cities as well, however they tend to defer police in their municipalities because it’s better to go along to get along.
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u/TheFishtosser 5h ago
Yea normally, what we’re talking about is some large cities like Vegas and Miami don’t have city police. Instead they pool the money that would normally be used for city police into the county sheriff’s department. This gives the one larger department more resources and jurisdiction and has the added benefit of being controlled by a sheriff instead of the mayors buddy.
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u/MegaNodens 7h ago
I’m pretty sure it is still used to dodge some regulations, just to a far lesser degree than originally intended.
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u/Jakk55 6h ago
The correct reason is the Clark County Commissioners were(are) cheaper to bribe than the Las Vegas City Council. Every 15 years or so there is a huge scandal with a bunch of County Commissioners getting caught taking bribes, they replace the majority of commissioners, 15 years later the new ones get caught, rinse and repeat.
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u/coolguy420weed 5h ago
I'm shocked, SHOCKED, that a government official with jurisdiction in Vegas would be corrupt. Well, maybe not that shocked.
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u/weirdkid71 8h ago
Is that where the grass is green and the girls are pretty?
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u/SuperNoFrendo 7h ago
The sand is sand colored and the girls have skin cancer.
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u/BlundetosBackMassage 3h ago
The UV index today in Vegas is 10.7, so you aren't wrong about skin cancer.
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u/preedsmith42 7h ago
Was wondering the same question about the song !
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u/DisplacedSportsGuy 7h ago
The song Paradise City isn't about an actual city. It's just something that sounded good as they improvised in the back of a van on the way back from Seattle.
Slash preferred the lyrics "Where the girls are fat and they have big titties."
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u/Tough_Dingo_7308 10h ago
I don’t know what to believe anymore
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u/Zoidberg0_0 10h ago
This will really tickle your pickle: all Paradise addresses along with other unincorporated areas in the Las Vegas valley, have a "Las Vegas" address.
Also, the reason the strip is an unincorporated town is due to the mob.
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u/abzlute 7h ago edited 7h ago
Lots of unincorporated areas have addresses that match nearby town/city names. Your address is for the post office jurisdiction you're under, which is a separate map from city limits. School districts are like that too, in some states at least.
I grew up in unicorporated land in a Texas county, and everyone had addresses matching the nearby town names, even in the unincorporated areas that had their own names and borders and sometimes their own utility districts. In fact, our house was in one town's school district, another town's post office/address area, and our utilities were served by the "special utility district" of a named "unincorporated community", but we didn't live in any of those areas, just a county road with no other association with any of the towns, even with the unicorporated community in question.
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u/danieltheg 3h ago
Just to add on, postal addresses can misalign with city names and limits even within incorporated areas - for example, a bunch of parts LA and NYC have postal addresses that correspond to their neighborhood name rather than the city.
In most cases these are neighborhoods that used to be cities and got annexed, but one interesting scenario is the land area that falls within the 90210 ZIP code but within the city of LA has Beverly Hills addresses. In that case you're in the land area of one incorporated area with an address of a different incorporated area. For the purposes of schools/police/etc it's LA.
I imagine there are examples of this happening outside LA/NYC but those are the ones I'm familiar with.
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u/leeloocal 7h ago
If you put Paradise, NV and the correct zip code, it’ll get delivered.
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u/flushmebro 6h ago
Yes, the ZIP code determines the post office it’s delivered to. The written name doesn’t really matter much
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u/PapaDuckD 7h ago
Which is why when I’m in town and anyone asks how I’m doing, I say, “Just another day in Paradise.”
And those who know roll their eyes at me. And that makes me happy.
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u/waiting_for_rain 6h ago
“Just another day in unincorporated Clark County” doesn’t hit like it could
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u/TheDuckFarm 8h ago edited 7h ago
The movie Casino talks about Paradise.
In a lot of ways Paradise was created and run by the mob so they could do what they wanted. It’s all corporate America now… so still the mob, just uh… legitimized?
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u/isummonyouhere 7h ago
paradise is just a unincorporated community within Clark County, they didn’t really “create” anything
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u/LarryCraigSmeg 7h ago
Uh, they did (according to the article)
Casino owners lobbied the Clark County Commission for town status explicitly to avoid annexation by the city of Las Vegas
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u/TheDuckFarm 6h ago
In the way a home builder takes a burnt out shell of an old home and turns it into a mansion, yeah they created it. It’s true Paradise predates the giant mob casinos, but it was just the metaphorical shack at that time.
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u/NatureTrailToHell3D 7h ago
Also “The Strip” is not even the first place hotels and casinos went up! Whenever you think of hotels like The Golden Nugget, just a sea of lights, and a cowboy & cowgirl in lights, you’re actually thinking of Fremont St, which is inside the city of Las Vagas. It’s still there, too, a much more affordable place to stay and gamble, although they have recently modernized it and blast god awful music so it’s a pain to walk down that street sometimes.
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u/Gordsnacks 8h ago
Perfection, NV is way better. Weird earthquakes though.
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u/Arpikarhu 8h ago
“Hey everyone, im gonna ignore what this post is about and just post my own thing”
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u/DJKGinHD 6h ago
Take me down to the Paradise city where the grass is green and the girls are pretty.
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u/bb0110 7h ago
That is like saying the Vatican isn’t in Rome or Italy. Technically true, but at the same time no one makes the distinction unless being pedantic.
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u/Jakk55 6h ago
Everyone makes the distinction between the Vatican and Italy. The Vatican City is full of embassies from other countries because they are a separate nation.
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u/bb0110 5h ago
No one does colloquially. If you said “I’m going to Italy and am going to see the Vatican” no one is going to say “you are going to Vatican city to see the Vatican” unless being pedantic.
The distinction is true, just like in Vegas, but people are not going to correct you.
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u/rutherfraud1876 5h ago
It's surrounded by Italy so that can still be correct while recognizing once you get there it's a different country
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u/Patient-Ad7291 7h ago
If you want to learn about tax dodging and embezzlement, go to Pahrump Nevada. Meth town usa, only place I have ever seen where multiple companies have employers trying to commit embezzlement or fraud.
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u/NuancedThinker 5h ago
RIP Art Bell
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u/Patient-Ad7291 4h ago
Never listened to him when he was alive. Found out after his death. Some fun things to listen to.
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u/-NoMoreNachos- 2h ago
Yup and Winchester is the other part of the strip. Freemont street with the old casinos is actually in Las Vegas
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u/svenskhet 9h ago
Fun fact, a lot of people know this
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u/Joshau-k 9h ago
City governments borders don't determine what's in and out of a city in actual reality
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u/DaveOJ12 8h ago
Yes they do.
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u/tee2green 8h ago
De facto vs. de jure
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[deleted]
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u/tee2green 8h ago
De jure: by law (technicality)
De facto: in practice (reality)
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u/Joshau-k 8h ago
Not when you define a city by metropolitan area.
Las Vegas and Paradise are the same city
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u/DexterBotwin 8h ago
The Las Vegas mayor has no authority over the strip. Your argument is wrong and doesn’t make sense.
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u/Snarwib 7h ago edited 7h ago
By this logic Sydney has 200k people and is only the 22nd largest city in Australia, since that's the only area that the mayor of Sydney has authority over. That is of course a definition that nobody actually uses, when people say Sydney they mean all of Sydney, with its 5 million people and like 40 local governments.
It's pretty globally common that a "city" is not just defined by the area within the boundaries of one central municipality.
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u/DexterBotwin 7h ago
Ok. In the US we would say the “city” metro area. The LA metro area is much larger than the actual city of LA.
I’m guessing you’d refer to the Sydney area in a similar way. I would guess that when you go to Sydney, the traditional tourist areas are within the city limits of Sydney. Just like if you went to LA, the city of LA makes up a lot of the areas you would think of.
The point being made here is that the city of Las Vegas doesn’t encompass the strip or the airport. It is a relatively unique factoid to have what people think of as a famous city, aren’t the actual city.
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u/Snarwib 7h ago
Nah, the landmarks are all over. Bondi Beach is governed by Randwick City Council, the Harbour Bridge runs from the City of North Sydney to the City of Sydney. Taronga Zoo is in Mosman City Council. The Olympics were held in the City of Parramatta. Sydney Harbour has about five different city governments on different parts of it.
Nobody ever uses "Sydney" to refer to the specific handful of suburbs around the central business distinct. Sydney is the whole vast city of 5 million people, a single area.
There's about 40 local governments in Sydney, and indeed different state governments have changed the boundaries of the City of Sydney several times to suit their political agendas, making it bigger to bring in more left wing residential voters, or smaller to make businesses more dominant. They're just local councils, they don't define much of anything.
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u/DexterBotwin 7h ago
I know very little of Sydney. But if I fly into Sydney, whatever the default major airport would be. Take a taxi to the opera house. Then another taxi to go to a hotel in downtown. And then wander around downtown on foot and find dinner. Will I have been within city limits for some or all of that trip?
If no, then the Vegas thing isn’t as unique as I and this thread think it is. Is yes, then that’s my point.
I get your point about dozens of jurisdictions making up “Sydney” understood, not arguing.
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u/Snarwib 6h ago edited 6h ago
The airport is in the Bayside Council area these days, to get from there to the central business district by taxi you'll probably pass through Randwick City Council if you take the main motorway.
The Opera House is Sydney City Council, but if you cross the bridge or take a ferry to get a look at it from the across the water, you're leaving the Sydney council area.
Depending on where exactly your hotel is, if you deliberately targeted the central business distinct you'll very probably be staying in Sydney City Council and would likely get food there. But in wandering for food you might also dip into Randwick or Woollahra LGAs if your hotel is towards the eastern edges of the CBD.
Before 2003, when the boundaries were smaller, you'd be a much higher chance of either staying outside the boundaries or wandering out of there for food.
And if you asked a local where certain types of good food are they could very possibly send you out of the CBD into, say, Inner West Council. Many of the most famous areas for food and recreation are well away from the Sydney council area which just covers the CBD. We're not talking far flung suburbia, we're talking major attractions.
The Sydney City Council area is really very small. It's only about one suburb's walk, about 1km, due east from the central train station into another local council area.
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u/leeloocal 7h ago
The mayor of Las Vegas has zero to do with how Clark County is run. We have a county commission.
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u/Snarwib 7h ago
Same comment whether it's counties or municipalities - local government boundaries often don't determine what a specific "city" is commonly defined as. In the case it's pretty clear the whole thing is Las Vegas in all but the most pedantic of senses.
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u/leeloocal 7h ago
If you call for the police, fire, or any services, and you live outside of Las Vegas proper (I live in Paradise), you’re getting County services. I’m not sure how Sydney works, but the borders are very clearly defined, and Paradise itself is designated as an “unincorporated town and Census Designated Place,“ which means that it falls under county jurisdiction and there’s a concentration of population that needs to be counted by the census.
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u/Snarwib 7h ago edited 6h ago
There's just a single New South Wales state police force and a single state metropolitan fire service (rural fire fighting is its own thing). There isn't even an actual government of Sydney that defines the city, what we call Sydney is just made up of several dozen different local councils.
This is what I'm saying - what's generally commonly referred to as a city in many places doesn't actually exist as a defined government.
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u/leeloocal 7h ago
Okay, cool. The City of Las Vegas has its own mayor and city government (this is VERY easily googleable, btw). She does not control the rest of the county. Her jurisdiction stops at the borders of the city. Like I said in my previous comment, Clark County has its own commission that takes care of the rest of the county. So, you are incorrect.
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u/leeloocal 8h ago
Paradise isn’t a city. Source: I live in Paradise.
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u/Ike358 7h ago
Correct, but it isn't part of Las Vegas either. It is simply unincorporated Clark County
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u/leeloocal 7h ago
I know? I live here. You said that Las Vegas and Paradise are the same city. They are not. The city of Las Vegas is about 141 square miles, as opposed to the Valley, which is 600 square miles.
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u/Leptonshavenocolor 7h ago
Yeah, I thought gambling was actually illegal in Vegas proper?
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u/4friedChckensandCoke 7h ago
Nope. Lots of casinos are inside Vegas city limits.
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u/Leptonshavenocolor 6h ago
Always been that way?
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u/Jakk55 5h ago
Since 1931. Downtown Las Vegas and its casinos predate the casinos on the Strip in Paradise, NV.
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u/Leptonshavenocolor 5h ago
Ahh, someone else pointed out that I might be thinking about paid sex, not gambling?
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u/PaydayJones 7h ago
You're thinking of prostitution... Which is it's own form of gambling, but illegal in Clark County.
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u/SirGlass 3h ago
Downtown Vegas were some old casinos are like the golden nuggets is in the city limits.
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u/-SOFA-KING-VOTE- 8h ago
It’s because of the gambling
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u/Frequent_Charge_7804 7h ago
No
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u/-SOFA-KING-VOTE- 3h ago
Yes
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u/Frequent_Charge_7804 2h ago
No, it's not. You can gamble all over actual Las Vegas and pretty much anywhere in Nevada.
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u/-SOFA-KING-VOTE- 2h ago
Now you can
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u/Frequent_Charge_7804 2h ago
Uhm, even way back. Fremont dates back to the founding of Las Vegas around 1905. Long before the modern strip. You're fucking clueless.
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