Not to quibble with Rachel...

[cthulu2016]

Okay, okay... yeah, to quibble with Rachel...

Last night she investigated whether Tampa is actually the strip-club capital of the world and noted that Las Vegas has the most strip-joints per capita.

But doesn't Las Vegas have the most of almost everything per capita? Granted, there are plenty of strip clubs there, but Las Vegas also has the most churches per capita.

Las Vegas exists for tourists and has to have the highest % non-resident population of any large American city. On any given day the population of Las Vegas is MUCH higher than the official population of Las Vegas residents.

So I would expect the town to lead in almost everything. Among large cities, it almost certainly has the most salt-shakers per capita, etc.

And that all makes Rachel's factoid that Cincinnati is #2 and has more strip joints per capita than Tampa even more eye-opening, since in a sense Cincinnati is probably number one.

[fifthoffive]

1. Cincinnati

I thought Rachel was touting Cincinnati as the place for strip clubs.

[SheilaT]

2. But she also noted, that Tampa wasn't

even number 2 in strip clubs per capita. That honor belongs to the wonderful city of Cincinnati.

[JoePhilly]

3. I saw that, but even if you take all that into consideration ... Cinnicinati was 2nd.

And Tampa was 3rd.

So you'd need to have some reason to discount Cincinnati as the #1 if you disqualified Vegas in the strip club Olympics.

[cthulu2016]

5. I am elevating Cincinnati as the true "cinn" city

I added to the OP to flesh it out

[Cleita]

4. Las Vegas is an illusion.

Drive around during the day, away from the casino lined strips and it really suffers urban blight. When the lights finally go out and the desert reclaims it, future archaeologists will consider it a giant slum with some palaces and temples.

[FSogol]

7. Sooner or later, there will be no water for Vegas. n/t

[Cleita]

10. Not only that, it gets all its electricity from Hoover dam on Lake Mead.

Once the water is gone, then so are all the lights.

[ljm2002]

12. No.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_electricity_does_Las_Vegas_get_from_Hoover_Dam

Las Vegas actually does not get much of its power from Hoover Dam, since the electric company serving Las Vegas is NV Energy, which owns its own power plants and does not operate the generators at Hoover Dam. NVE's own website states that 70% of their power generation for southern Nevada comes from natural gas fired plants, so at most 30% of Las Vegas' power would come from Hoover Dam (and most likely much less than that).

See this link for a breakdown of NVEnergy's power plants that serve Las Vegas (most are natural gas burning plants):

https://www.nvenergy.com/company/energytopics/where.cfm

Edited to add:

Also, they are building a large solar plant outside of Las Vegas. I would rather see decentralized solar all over the valley -- it is certainly one renewable resource that we have here in abundance!

One other thing: all the water used for things like the Bellagio's water show, and the gardens at the casinos, is recycled gray water. And the relatively new City Center development is one of the largest LEED-certified developments in the world:

http://www.archdaily.com/50724/city-center-las-vegas-6-leed-gold-certifications/

[Cleita]

13. Okay, I stand corrected but I was led to believe that's why Las Vegas exists.

I do believe it did get most of its power from Hoover Dam at one time. I guess things change. Thanks for the update.

[ljm2002]

16. No problem...

...it's a common misconception... I do try and correct it when I see it though, since people seem to have a particular animosity towards Las Vegas. It's not the only city that has issues about how supportable it is. But there is more going on here in that area than people give us credit for.

[JoePhilly]

6. Bummer ... I am now the "Tampa" of correct responses to this thread.

[dawg]

8. They must be counting population for the entire metro area.

Otherwise, I can't imagine anyplace other than Vegas beating Atlanta.

[Jennicut]

9. I found Rachel's commentary on what size of string one can bring to the RNC

to be even more hilarious the the # of strip clubs Tampa has. At least she will bring the humor to coverage of the RNC.

[JoePhilly]

11. My wife doesn't like to watch politics much, but she loves Rachel for that reason.

My wife loved "Debunktion Junction".

[Cleita]

14. There is a place in northern CA near the OR border that has a sign when you enter town

that says: MALFUNCTION JUNCTION. Since Rachel is a native Californian (born here) I think this is where she got that from.

[lame54]

15. Vegas is the Utah get-away

[Cleita]

17. It's more than that.

Utah owns much of the enterprise there. I read an article about it while in Nevada that told a history of how the Mormons managed to get much of the Las Vegas casino and hotel industry away from the mob, essentially pushing them out. Frankly, they are better administrators and businessmen than the mob.

[HopeHoops]

18. Vegas also has drive-through marriage booths (not kidding) and Tampa strip clubs suck.

Tampa might have a lot of them, but none that are worth bothering with.