Rate of change

I've never thought much before on *how* cities change over time. That it happens is inevitable, but it seems I've mostly been there while the changes occur, like the 28 years I've lived in the Seattle area, so I haven't taken much note. And even when I visited Midland last summer, after 42 years' absence, the main thing I noticed was that our old house was still there, my school buildings still standing.

But right now I'm sitting in the Salt Lake City airport, returning home from a week of technical committee meetings at a conference in Las Vegas where, despite having little free time, I got to see "change" in a very big way.

I first visited Las Vegas for a trade show in 1982, and evenings had some time to wander around. I'm not into gambling or shows (still haven't seen any), but took in the sights and the lights seen from the street. I didn't return again until 3 years ago, a quarter-century later, and was amazed at the change. The casino hotels I remembered were all gone. I could only identify the street my hotel (the Sands?) was on by the peculiar angle of that street to Las Vegas Blvd.

But none of it quite hit home until my return to Las Vegas a week ago where, on the Strip to get dinner, I contrasted Vegas of memory with Vegas today. And I thought of Midland which, though it is different from Midland 42 years ago, seems to retain much of what it was then, in sufficient enough ways to look little different. And Redmond (WA), somewhere in-between, remaking itself at a rate somewhere in-between.

So I wonder: what drives the change, and what the preservation of what they were? None of these cities are poor, lacking in money, and yet there is such a difference in their rates of change.