What comes to mind when you think of Las Vegas? Casinos? Stage shows? Opulent hotels? Tourists? Upscale retailers? While these are all certainly part of the landscape of the city, they occupy only one small part - a single street - of this enormous city. Beyond the Strip, it's as if the sheaf of a Las Vegas' book has been turned over to reveal an ordinary city with ordinary concerns, like education, health care, government, and of course, industry. Here are some of the ordinary industrial ventures going on behind the scenes in Las Vegas.

Development

How do huge casinos and resort hotel complexes come into existence in the first place? Through the efforts of commercial developers. These guys are responsible for the design, planning, and erection of monster projects like shopping malls and casinos. They handle everything from crane rentals to the supply of waste water treatment chemicals for the sewage treatment plants that service the city. With the economy of the city so dependant on tourism revenues, developers are always busy thinking of and creating new ways to draw visitors in.

Construction

Sixteen percent of the male workforce in Las Vegas is employed in the construction industry. Some work for firms building casinos and hotels that further the tourist trade, but many, many more are employed to create housing for the city's new residents. With the population constantly growing, the city's plumbers, carpenters, electricians, masons, and laborers and their pneumatic conveyors are kept busy. The projects they work on include: hotels, condominium and apartment high rises, and new suburban housing divisions.

Shipping

Lack of access to water hasn't precluded Las Vegas from doing booming business in shipping, it just means that the city's efforts are directed primarily into truck and air transport. McCarran Airport handles about half a million pounds of cargo in any given year, while the city's location at the intersection of several major highways has attracted dozens of trucking companies. So if you're looking to have something warehoused, transported across the country, or even if you want to buy a used septic tank truck, come to Las Vegas.

Manufacturing

To save on transit costs, cities often end up manufacturing items for use in local markets. Companies in Seattle and Silicon Valley turn out web collaboration software packages while firms in Las Vegas and Reno have turned their attention to gaming machines. Several types of gaming machine, most notably the ubiquitous slot machine, are produced in Las Vegas factories. They find their way into local casinos and are shipped all over the continent to other casinos and restaurants.