我到赌城是为了报复。多年以来，我每次看到餐馆的“试吃菜单”支票都会倒抽一口凉气，俱乐部的酒价是外面的10倍，酒店套房的价格几乎要超过我的信用卡额度上限，脱衣舞俱乐部的价格奇高无比，给发牌人的小费也远超过一般水平。但这次，我得到的酒店房间价格很低，饮食价格简直就是成本价，从更衣室里面强烈指责脱衣舞娘收低价的标语来看，我还得到了一些VIP房间才会提供的服务。这是有史以来第一次在拉斯维加斯做完交易后会为别人感到难过。

　　但是我不会为自己落井下石感到内疚，拉斯维加斯现在陷入了困境。现在是它成为一个真正的城市以来的第一次大萧条。在过去的20年中，维加斯是美国发展最快的城市，但现在它停下了前进的脚步。在所有大城市中，维加斯没收房屋进行拍卖的比率是最高的。三年间，失业率从3.8%上升到了12.3%。即使你有工作，也不要在现在把工资和别人支付的小费挂起钩来。这座头号会议城市现在掀起了取消会议的浪潮，因为公司都不想人们看到这座“罪恶都市”现在丑陋的样子。拉斯维加斯在过去的二十年是奢侈消费的中心，而从去年开始，它就处于最严重的萧条之中。在享受报复的快感的同时，我也有点担心这座最美国化的城市的梦想破灭，它曾经有着1900年的纽约的乐观和可能性。让人难为情的是，我也爱这座城市。

　　但是我在这儿了，因为维加斯正在大甩卖。斯蒂夫·温恩的温恩度假村为了把不足72%的入住率提高到82%，率先进行了降价。只要在7月份适当的时候入住，就可以用109美元的价格定到750平方英尺的大房间，而在一年前，这个房间要500美元，除此之外，还能得到50美元的礼券。米高梅集团的高级餐馆已经没有了400美元一瓶的酒，取得代之的是100美元一瓶的。它有可能成为美国其它城市的榜样，也有可能会在经济重振失败后陷入长期的萧条。

　　维加斯正处于建设真正的城市中心的过程中。一切听上去都非常疯狂：假的埃菲尔铁塔、巨大的歌舞喷泉以及无处不在的舞池。如果我们决定不需要一个和华盛顿特区差不多大小的度假中心，我们就不该继续为赌博、试吃菜单、温泉疗养、脱衣舞俱乐部投入大量资源。然后我们可以使人们从奢侈享乐变得节俭。

　　周二下午出了点小岔子，我再也不能容忍自己的房间预订被搞得一塌糊涂了。现在这座城市受到了衰退的严重打击，其中有部分原因是修建了太多的酒店。我向桌子后面的人微笑，相当确定自己会被升级到总统套房。但接下来我被告知酒店已经没有任何房间了。我去曼德拉湾见朋友，那里人满为患，座位都找不到。大减价起了作用，维加斯现在顾客盈门。但这种衰退中的繁荣迷惑不了我。

　　我从满满当当的停车场中出来，走到外面的道路上。我见到了不太可能在维加斯看到的景象：停工的建筑项目。我经过了Echelon项目的工地，它是一个巨大的，价值数十亿美元的项目。它由四座酒店组成，但现在只有三座9层楼高的钢筋混凝土支架立在这块曾经全国最贵的地皮上。我又经过了另外三个被废弃的工地，分别是：高达63层的枫丹白露，现在只有空荡荡的钢架；假想的凯撒皇宫的屋大维塔，连外壳都没做好；圣瑞吉斯公寓停止了施工。然后我开车到了按照纽约的皇冠酒店修建的度假村，它堆满了垃圾。实在太丑陋了，以至于温恩酒店不得不种了一排树，这样客人就不会从窗户里面看到外面的情况。我从来没想到经济衰退的影响会和战争一样。

　　译文：

　　I have come for revenge. For years, I've hyperventilated at restaurant "tasting menu" checks, forfeited 1,000% markups for bottle service at clubs, neared my credit-card limit for hotel suites, paid usury to strip-club ATMs and pushed far too many chips to the dealer. On this trip, I will get a hotel room for less than the upkeep on the room, eat a meal for near what it costs to serve it and - at least according to a sign in the Cheetahs dressing room berating the strippers for undercharging - get some kind of deal in the VIP room. For the first time ever, it is possible to complete a monetary exchange in Las Vegas and feel bad for the other person.

　　I, however, feel guiltless about taking advantage when someone is down, and Vegas is way down. This has been the first major recession Vegas has experienced since it became a real city. After two decades as one of the fastest-growing metropolises in the U.S., Las Vegas has seen its population growth flatten. It's got the highest foreclosure rate of any major metro area, and the unemployment rate jumped from 3.8% to 12.3% in just three years. Even if you have a job, it's not a good time to have your wage be dependent on lavish tips. The No. 1 convention city has also had a wave of cancellations from the AIG effect - companies don't want the bad publicity of being seen in Sin City. Just as Las Vegas was the epicenter of the extravagant consumption of the past 20 years, now it's the deepest crater of the recession over the last year. And while I do want to get my money back, I'm a little worried about seeing the dream sucked out of our most American city, the one with the optimism and possibility of New York City in 1900. The one I've, embarrassingly, come to love.

　　But I'm here because Las Vegas is on sale. The hotels, led by Wynn Resorts boss Steve Wynn, slashed room prices to increase occupancy rates to 82% from a low of 72%. On the right day in July, you could book the type of 750-sq.-ft. room that was $500 a year ago at the Wynn for $109 and get a $50 gift certificate. The high-end restaurants at the MGM have gotten rid of most of their $400 bottles of wine and replaced them with $100 ones. This is either a model for the rest of the country or, if the reset fails, the beginning of a long, long slide.

　　Vegas was in the midst of building a real urban center, trying to turn what was just a break from sanity - fake Eiffel Tower! giant dancing fountain! a dance in every lap! - into a permanent installation of insanity. If we decide that we don't need a resort town that's roughly the same size as Washington, D.C. (which Las Vegas is) - that we can't continue to devote as many resources to gambling, tasting menus, spas, strip joints and nightclubs as we do to our national government - then we finally revert from being a nation of optimistic materialism to one of Puritan thrift. The one that not even Cotton Mather could get Americans to buy.

　　This precarious moment - early on a Tuesday afternoon - I could not be more unconcerned that my room reservation has been screwed up. In this city hurt hardest by recession, partly because it built too many hotel rooms, I smile at the man behind the desk, sure that I am about to be upgraded to a presidential suite. Then I'm told there are no more rooms of any kind available at The Hotel. When I go to meet a friend by the pool at the Mandalay Bay, it's too crowded to find chairs. All the price-cutting has succeeded: the town is full. This recession business is totally not working for me.

　　As I turn out of my hotel's full parking lot, veering onto the Strip, I come across something rarely seen in Vegas: frozen construction projects. I pass cranes abandoned at the site of the Echelon, a huge, multibillion-dollar project of four hotels that is now just three buildings of nine floors of concrete and steel beams sitting idly on some of the most expensive real estate in the country. I pass three more abandoned sites - 63 empty steel floors of the Fontainebleau, a sad unfinished shell that was supposed to be Caesars Palace's Octavius Tower and two cranes halted on a structure that was supposed to be a St. Regis condo building. I then drive up to where the New Frontier was razed to build a resort modeled on New York City's Plaza Hotel. It's just a dirt wasteland, so ugly that Wynn planted a row of trees so his hotel guests wouldn't stare at it from their windows. I never realized an economic defeat could look so much like a military one.