Environmental Nightmares

[David Morris]

Having just returned from Thanksgiving holiday in Las Vegas (not my
idea - the two kids decided that their families and my wife & I should
converge there this year), I was reminded of Sportello's venture
there.  And I remembered the real estate thread of that trip, the "old
strip" about to be redeveloped into a brand new casino (am I
remembering correctly?).  Then I thought about how Mickey's
residential development that is the scene of the initial murder is
called an "environmental disaster" or something to that effect.  Why
is it that Pynchon seems to ignore the environmental disaster that is
Las Vegas?  And similarly, wouldn't Mickey's "putting up a whole city
from scratch someday, out in the desert" for people to live in for
free also have been an environmental disaster in terms of water
supply?  And later, when Doc is discussing Mickey's development with
that "old money" guy (I forget his name), it seems Mickey's
development is an environmental disaster only because it brings the
riff-raff out into the domain of the more aesthetically-minded
old-money crowd.

It just seems that real estate, development, and the environment have
a large place in IV, but I just  don't see how the integrate into a
coherent picture...

David Morris