The news from Las Vegas does not seem to be improving:

The once-booming Las Vegas region has for 44 straight months led the United States in home foreclosures, and 80 percent of houses here are figuratively underwater — worth less than the debt owed on them.

A staggering 23.6 percent of Nevada mortgages are in some form of delinquency or foreclosure, significantly higher than the national average of 14 percent, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association.

It’s a confusing, devastating turn of events for a city that for two decades was the sterling example of an American boom town.

What is the future of Las Vegas? Unlike Rust Belt cities suffering from foreclosures (like Cleveland, Detroit, etc.), Las Vegas still has a large economic engine in the form of casinos. But now that the boom town era is over, I imagine city leaders and others would want to create a different kind of Las Vegas with more measured economic growth.