Nevada is largely desert of one sort or another, a place that must be crossed to reach the coast if headed west, or to reach the more fertile parts of the country if headed east. So a wonderful place to make a home wouldn’t be your first thought.
Nevertheless it has managed to develop two sizable cities with suburbs - Las Vegas and Reno. What has it had to offer to draw people and capital here? Several things, beginning with no state income tax.
If any state can be labeled “libertarian” Nevada would have to top the list. For many decades the ethos in Nevada has been, “whatever adults want to do alone or with other consenting adults is their business.”
I grew up in CA knowing NV was a place of quickie divorces, bars that stayed open 24 hours a day if there was patronage, gambling halls, sex for sale, and high speed limits. I still remember the first time I saw a commercial building in NV labeled “The Shamrock Brothel,” a degree of openness I hadn’t believed existed.
People came from all over the country to do in NV what they chose without some government nosey parker telling them “no.” They still do, hence the current motto “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” It might be more accurate if altered to read “Money brought to Vegas, stays in Vegas.”
Within five miles of my winter place there is a large factory growing, processing, and packaging marijuana. Yes, there are on-site sales though I’ve abstained.
In recent years firms have taken advantage of the reasonable prices asked for sun-blasted desert land to build gigantic tilt-up warehouses from which hundreds of semi trucks haul merchandise of all sorts to retail establishments west of the Rockies. Nevada obligingly refrains from taxing merchandise in transit, which is a big incentive. There are a couple of these distribution centers just down the road a mile or less from the dope plant.
