What happens when a city decides to rebuild its future all at once?
In Las Vegas, the volcano that defined a generation is gone. In its place, a 700-foot guitar is rising. A 33,000-seat climate-controlled baseball stadium is taking shape where the Tropicana once stood, while a new resort is being built around it. And beneath the desert, a 218-mile high-speed rail line is being developed to carry passengers between Las Vegas and Southern California at up to 200 miles per hour.
Together, these projects represent roughly $30 billion in construction—and a much bigger experiment in how Americans might travel, gather, and experience cities.
But soaring costs, labor shortages, uncertain financing, and slipping timelines reveal a deeper question: can Las Vegas build this much future at once?
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The volcano is gone. The experiment has begun.