Las Vegas

Lake Mead, we’ll be honest: You’ve looked better.

The reservoir, which serves 25 million people across the southwest, has been dwindling since 1993. Is this the new normal?

What happens first in Vegas: bike lanes or bikes?

Las Vegas is a good place to test the theory of induced demand: In a city hostile to cyclists, will better bike infrastructure convert more drivers into riders?

Las Vegas actually pretty good at conserving water

The Las Vegas strip likes to pretend it’s flush in all manner of luxuries, including water -- even though Lake Mead, which provides the city with water, could disappear within the next decade. Running a giant fountain or indoor canal in the middle of the desert is the hydrological equivalent of flashing fat stacks of cash. But while casinos aren't exactly down with water conservation (that’s for poor people!), the Las Vegas government is.

My complicated love affair with a little gray Honda

With car ownership came a nagging suspicion that I was on the wrong side of a Big Issue. My purist environmentalist friends were sure about it: Anyone who gets angry about the wars over oil, they told me, can't have a car and a clean conscience at the same time. I didn't know if it was so simple.