vegas

At the beginning of his article Eco talks about Las Vegas, and its purpose as a city. He claims that it is indeed a real city, though it may have been created for other reasons. He goes on to note that it is a changing city; moving parallel with its gambling and entertainment heritage, its sprouting a residential, and business community as well. This growth and expansion therefore makes it absent from the list of “absolutely fake cities”. Now, had I have not traveled to Las Vegas this summer, I would probably disagree with that statement, however I have a different take on it now that I’ve been. On the Sunday morning when the only thing I wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep for days, I found myself sitting next to a man on the plane who actually lives in Las Vegas. When he said that, I was astounded. “How could you possibly live here” I said, and he replied, “the part of the city you were in is the fake part, there’s another part of Las Vegas that outsiders don’t ever see”. So taking this experience into context and relating it to Eco’s work and descriptions of ‘fake cities’, I would have to say that he may have missed the point in Las Vegas. There is EVERYTHING fake about the strip, in fact most things that people think are real aren’t, the only measurable thing could the be emotion, but that is getting away from the point. It’s a perfect example of consumerism throwing a vail on democracy. Marx would love Vegas….