A few weeks ago, Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo published an unusually whiny op-ed in the New York Times. He complained about inflation, interest rates and rising real estate prices. Most of all, he complained about land use.

The federal government controls 80% of the land in Nevada, mostly through the Bureau of Land Management. Lombardo cited estimates that at the current rate of development, the Las Vegas metropolitan area will run out of developable land as early as 2032. “The fact that these tenures surround the urban areas of the state is a limiting factor for the development of new housing opportunities,” he wrote. (I’m sure water supply is another factor, although he didn’t mention it.)

He is right: The Las Vegas Review-Journal has declared a “housing crisis,” with real estate prices rising to an average of around $450,000 and a shortage of 78,000 affordable rental units. Otherwise, this is nothing new in Nevada politics.

Until the Golden Knights came along, complaining about the Bureau of Land Management had long been the state’s favorite sport. Lombardo’s request, however, was more specific than the generic libertarian whining Nevadans are used to. He called on the Biden administration to open 50,000 acres of desert for development so Nevada can create up to 335,000 homes for anyone enjoying their American dream medium rare.

It’s worth it for us Californians to keep an eye on our neighbors to the east. We have a mountain lake to tend to, traffic to regulate on the highways, super trains to develop, turtles and Joshua trees to protect, and sports teams to rob. And a worrying but understandable percentage of Californians, mostly from middle-income families, have considered moving to Nevada.

These are the people Governor Lombardo wants to settle on any land he can wrest from the federal government. (He doesn’t mention it in his essay, but he alludes to a bill introduced by Representative John Curtis of Utah to facilitate the sale of federal lands across the country.)

A few decades ago, the idea that Las Vegas would run out of space would have been laughable. In 1980, the metropolitan area had 438,000 residents (about the same as Reno today); today, it has nearly 3 million.

The situation Las Vegas faces today is a version of the one most major California metropolitan areas faced decades ago: growth constraints. San Francisco has been constrained since the Victorian era, and Oakland has always been squeezed between mountains and bay. In Los Angeles, sprawl reached its limits in the 1980s. Even the Inland Empire can’t gallop like it once did. In each case, mountains, coastlines, other cities and, yes, protected open space have forced cities to grow through density rather than expansion.

The problem of accommodating more people in California is not necessarily related to residential densification. California’s densification has been based on inconvenient construction, such as the dingbat, the strip mall, and, more recently, five-a-side apartment buildings. Much of our dense development has been in strip malls, which are nominally efficient but inherently ugly. The most pleasant neighborhoods, where talented architects with attractive, appropriate designs could probably work wonders, are often those least inclined to growth. So far, we have failed to create pleasantly dense places, and have settled instead for too many self-destructive messes that give density a bad name.

With 5,046 people per square mile, the city of Las Vegas isn’t exactly Hoboken, but it is more densely populated than you’d imagine (for comparison, Phoenix has 3,100 residents). There are a lot of small homes on small lots (making the city relatively inexpensive per unit), and there are also a lot of small multifamily housing. Many residents commute to one of the largest jobs (especially blue-collar jobs) in the country: the Las Vegas Strip, so there are gravitational forces keeping residents in the city.

And yet, the population density is only a fraction of that of some cities famous for their hotel-casinos. More importantly, the population density here is unfavorable – much more unfavorable than in most large California cities. The city of Las Vegas has a walkscore of 42 (meaning “car dependent,” which seems generous). In North Las Vegas, walkability drops to 33 and in Henderson to 30. In comparison, the city of Los Angeles scores 69.

Lombardo’s proposal would do two things: 1) encourage low-density sprawl and 2) undermine the city’s incentives for (higher-density) new development.

To its credit, Las Vegas wants to grow. It wants none of the slow-growth paralysis that has hampered too many parts of California. Unfortunately, Lombardo’s appeal suggests that he wants Las Vegas to continue to sprawl, presumably by continuing to build inexpensive single-family homes, apartment complexes with lots of parking, and other inconsequential commercial developments necessary to keep suburbanites fed, fit, and energized.

We all know how this will end. Even the Nevada desert is not infinite. Meanwhile, even Las Vegas residents don’t want to make hour-long commutes anymore. Even a place accustomed to extreme heat probably doesn’t want climate change to get worse.

Lombardo writes, “Nevadans know what hard work looks like.” If that’s the case, he and his constituents should be all about density. Density is hard work. Urban planning is hard work. Sustainability is hard work. Walkability is hard work. Encouraging greenfield development is the easy way out.

Lombardo said providing housing “starts with removing government barriers to development.” Sure, but it doesn’t have to be the federal government.

Lombardo could instead do what Governors Brown and Newsom, along with legislators, have tried to do over the past decade. He could instead focus on local governments and their development policies. He could work with planners and developers. They and other stakeholders could build consensus on what a denser Las Vegas could look like. They could encourage innovative design, rather than the same old, superficial stucco boxes touted as “resort living” that populate inland California communities from Victorville to Hemet to Santa Clarita. They could build real neighborhoods worthy of Las Vegas’s global reputation, rather than essentially a forgettable back room serving the Strip.

Back in 1972, architects Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steve Izenour celebrated Las Vegas’ design flair. They reveled in the superficiality of signage and simulacra. Now Las Vegas – not the Strip, but the actual city – has the opportunity to become realistic.

It could be more densely populated. It could be more efficient. It could be both cost-effective and attractive. It could embrace all the ersatz historicism it’s famous for, settle for artificial limitations, and consider a new approach to city-building. Granted, Las Vegas will probably never be Paris, Venice, or New York. But it could be cosmopolitan. Or it could be Riverside.

In short, with a little imagination – real imagination, not mere spectacle – Southern Nevada could learn from the lessons California teaches so vividly.

Don’t get me wrong. Regardless of the water supply, I don’t want Las Vegas not grow. If done right, a more densely populated Las Vegas will accommodate California exiles and anyone else who wants to live there — better than it does now. And California needs a little competition. Let’s compete for residents and let the best state win — not the happiest or whiniest.

Map courtesy of Bureau of Land Management. Image courtesy of Andrew via Flickr.