WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

I mean, I've been doing this for 18 years.

I have never, ever seen such a desperate cry for help for housing.

Nevada has gotten so expensive that hotel and casino workers in Las Vegas can't afford their own homes.

It's Friday, March 27th, and this is here and now anytime from NPR and WBUR. I'm Chris Bentley.

Today on the show, we're taking a whirlwind tour through Nevada for a close-up look at the economy.

There are bright spots with some rural mining towns riding high on the price of gold.

Anytime you have mining, we'll call it a roller coaster ride.

You have peaks and valleys.

Good times, bad times, good times, bad times.

And this is living proof of it right here.

But Nevadans are also struggling with the cost of living, especially housing.

And that is one of the things that Peter O'Dowd went to Nevada to talk to people about.

And he's here now to tell me a little bit more about his trip before we hear his stories.

You know, Peter, we talk a lot about the economy on this show.

And there's the economy of GDP and stock prices and interest rates.

And then there's the economy that you and I and

everyone else in the country actually experience on a day-to-day basis. You wanted to explore

that economy, so to speak, right? Why was Nevada a good place to do that? Well, Nevada is, well,

first of all, it's a really important swing state politically. Like, it's going to play a key role in, you know, the congressional elections and more especially the presidential elections in a couple of years. So it's, it's an important state politically. But I also think it's a really fascinating state because it's out there in the sunbelt. You know, it's one of those states where the cities like Reno and Las Vegas, they're really fast, fast-growing cities, some of the fastest growing places in the entire country. And they've got the, they've got the hospitality industry, tens of thousands of workers who've got this political clout through the culinary union, lean, you know, very far to the left politically. It's a really,

you know, the cities are really blue. Then you leave the cities, Chris, and all of a sudden,

you're in what, you know, people refer to there as the rural's. And it is incredibly, incredibly rural.

...