For a picture of America's pre-crisis economy, pay a visit to the south-east corner of Las Vegas. Where the valley begins to rise into the high desert, a Chinese developer has carved the top off a mountain. A wide, empty, road rises into what looks like the remnants of an Inca city. The project, named "Ascaya", was once America's biggest excavation site. The idea was to sell the plots to Las Vegas's elite, whose mansions would enjoy a view over the desert in one direction and the bacchana-lia of the Strip ten miles away in the other. Instead, in 2009, Las Vegas's economy died. For five years the project appeared doomed to become a monument, carved into rock, to an unsustainable housing boom. Now however, construction has re-started-not just on this site, but on several hundred others at the city's edge. House prices, like employment, visitor numbers and gambling revenues, are creeping up again. Las Vegas's economy is recovering-fitfully, but in a way that is more sustainable than its previous boom was. The city, unique though it is, is an exaggerated microcosm of America at large.
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