City Cast Las Vegas
City Cast Las Vegas is a daily podcast and newsletter created by and for locals (and locals-at-heart) that’ll challenge the easy narratives about our city … and, okay, maybe confirm a few of them, too. Las Vegas is a city of reinvention, bursting at the seams as it welcomes newcomers into its various incarnations as a service-worker union town, a military town, a college town, and, most recently, a sports town. There’s a four-mile street testifying to our entrepreneurial genius, not far from pockets of staggering inequality. Great wealth runs through our city, but how much of that actually stays in Vegas? We’re independent in spirit, but also ruled by orange traffic cones. Our 2.5 million residents anchor an ever-changing city of 42 million visitors. Join us every morning for the messy, delightful, complicated conversations that Las Vegans are having: You’ll hear us ask hard questions about where we’ll get our water when Lake Mead runs out, and how we’ll keep housing affordable. We’ll argue over our favorite Chinatown bars, and share insider tips on the best tacos in town. City Cast Las Vegas will show you how loving a city means celebrating it and also holding it accountable, while having some fun along the way—because Las Vegans know how to have a good time.
Episodes
May 30, 2023 • 23 mins
Every few weeks, it seems like we get a new headline telling us that the much-publicized high-speed rail line between Vegas and LA is getting one step closer to reality. Las Vegans are used to start-and-stop train promises that dangle and disappear. But this time (this time!) things might actually be different. Nevada Independent reporter Gabby Birenbaum tells co-host Dayvid Figler how the billionaire-backed Brightline West is in t...
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May 26, 2023 • 29 mins
The Commercial Center debacle is the (erm) gift that just keeps giving: To celebrate the renaming of the adjacent Karen Ave. to Liberace Ave., the County helped organize a festival that ballooned to a party with 10,000 ticket holders when it was announced that legendary DJ Deadmau5 would be headlining. But the local artists who’ve worked to rebuild this“blighted” center weren’t exactly pleased with how the party turned out — and wh...
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May 25, 2023 • 18 mins
Vegan or plant-based eating has been picking up steam recently and by all accounts the trend is here to stay. Vegas has seen a rise in popular vegan restaurants while other establishments are adding vegan dishes to their menus. With her Vegas Vegan Culinary School & Eatery, Heather Heath is in the vanguard of a meat-free movement in a town better known for steakhouses and prime rib. But while the city’s getting veggier, it's still ...
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May 24, 2023 • 21 mins
Well, it looks like the Oakland A’s are one step closer to getting public financing for a new stadium in Las Vegas. Yesterday, the Nevada Independent reported that the team and state officials had reached a “loose agreement” for a reduced public financing package. After all the drama over stadium sites, dubious polling, PR blitzes, and public financing demands… are we in the home stretch? And is bringing the A’s to Vegas really suc...
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May 23, 2023 • 17 mins
The new racquet sport of pickleball has been sweeping the nation — here in Las Vegas, demand for the sport has risen so much that the City of Las Vegas recently received a $12 million grant to build 30 new pickleball courts. But it isn’t without controversy. Some homeowners near the new court sites are worried about noise levels, parking issues, and how their home values could fare. So what’s with the pickleball mania? And can the ...
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May 22, 2023 • 22 mins
A showdown over school choice is brewing up in Carson City: Governor Lombardo is prepared to veto the entire state budget if the legislature doesn’t approve his ambitious plan to expand Nevada’s quasi school voucher program. Meanwhile, Clark County is ground zero for the impact of school choice legislation — the majority of the state’s voucher program recipients (administered through Opportunity Scholarships) live here in Southern ...
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May 19, 2023 • 31 mins
In this week’s news roundup, we discus some big money moves happening in Vegas. First, Nevada lawmakers are considering a groundbreaking $4.9 billion tax break aimed at attracting film companies to the state. Next, we delve into the results of a recent poll conducted for the A’s baseball team, suggesting that two-thirds of Clark County are in favor of their ballpark proposal — but we’ve got questions about this poll (like… why didn...
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May 18, 2023 • 21 mins
Korean food has seen an explosion of popularity in Vegas (and the U.S. broadly) over the last few years, but most of our Korean restaurants in town seem to be K-BBQ spots. You know, the meat restaurants where you cook your meat over a grill set right into your table. But there’s a whole lot more to Korean food, lead producer Sonja Cho Swanson tells co-host Vogue Robinson — in fact, the traditional Korean diet was largely vegetable-...
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May 17, 2023 • 20 mins
You might remember from middle school science that protecting the ozone layer in our atmosphere is vitally important — but ozone near the ground is actually a dangerous air pollutant. And as temperatures rise, the formation of ground-level ozone becomes increasingly serious here in the Valley. In fact, Clark County has recently issued an ozone warning through September. Kevin MacDonald from the Clark County Department of Environmen...
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May 16, 2023 • 21 mins
Mayor Pamela Goynes-Brown made history last year when she was elected to the North Las Vegas mayoral seat — and became the first Black mayor in the state of Nevada. Mayor Goynes-Brown sits down with co-host Vogue Robinson to talk about her vision for North Las Vegas, the city she grew up in, from her ambitious plan for downtown to commercial redevelopment, affordable housing, and the ongoing struggle to help the residents of the si...
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May 15, 2023 • 16 mins
Deep in the Colorado River, monsters lurk in the murky waters — monster fish, that is, some the size of large person. But they aren’t invulnerable. Today on City Cast Las Vegas, co-host Dayvid Figler talks with National Geographic channel host Zeb Hogan, co-author of Chasing Giants, a new book about the world’s biggest freshwater fish. Zeb grew up on the Colorado, but by the time he was paddling on its waters, most of the truly big...
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May 12, 2023 • 32 mins
This week’s roundup deals with two of Vegas’ favorite topics, traffic and entertainment. The possible elimination of HOV lanes has pros and cons, but how will those lanes be repurposed? Also, after years of uncertainty, Brightline West’s high-speed rail from LA to Las Vegas seems to finally move forward and a new trend among Strip headliners to lock up phones gets mixed reviews. Co-hosts Dayvid Figler and Vogue Robinson share their...
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May 11, 2023 • 21 mins
The world of Las Vegas wine has traditionally been dominated by master sommeliers and snooty connoisseurs — at one point, 10% of the world’s master somms worked in Las Vegas. But there’s a new wine on the block: natural wines are cloudy, funky and little bit weird. And Las Vegas based writer Meg Bernhard tells co-host Dayvid Figler, you should give them a try. Today on City Cast Las Vegas, Meg talks about her time working on vineya...
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May 10, 2023 • 25 mins
Take it from these old-timers: Navigating and surviving Las Vegas can be tricky. We’re an odd big-little town, where tourists outnumber the locals twenty-fold. So today, we’ve got co-hosts Vogue Robinson and Dayvid Figler, along with lifelong Las Vegan Andrew Kiraly, publisher of thelist.vegas, to help you out. From car culture to comp karma, with tangents on making friends and the things you should never say to gamblers, we’ve got...
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May 9, 2023 • 22 mins
Congresswoman Dina Titus has been representing Nevada’s First Congressional District since 2013, and before that she served in state government for two decades. So, it’s no surprise that she has opinions on some of the biggest issues Las Vegas is facing right now. Today she joins co-host Dayvid Figler to talk about water allocation, gaming, a not-so-old beef with the Nevada State Legislature, and more.
We’re on social media! Follo...
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May 8, 2023 • 22 mins
Las Vegas is arguably the spectacle capital of the world — and yet, when it comes to popular-but-not-quite-stadium-sized musical acts (like The Cure, Boy Genius, and Bruce Springsteen), many of them skip Vegas but land in cities like Reno, Phoenix, and Salt Lake City. Yep, RENO. So what’s going on? Co-host Dayvid Figler sits down with Seth Yudof, a longtime entertainment producer in Las Vegas, about the unique entertainment economy...
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May 5, 2023 • 28 mins
The Nevada Democratic Party saw two of their members, Clark County Commissioner Justin Jones and Chairwoman Daniele Monroe-Moreno, make headlines this week that were critical of their recent actions: Jones was sanctioned by a judge for deleting text messages related to developer Jim Rhodes’ efforts to build homes in Red Rock Canyon — some people even called for his resignation at a public comment meeting. Meanwhile, the GOP critici...
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May 4, 2023 • 20 mins
Las Vegas is only 117 years old, which is young in comparison to Los Angeles’ 241 years. (Not that we wanna be LA) But we do think Las Vegas is still learning how to preserve its own history. One of the things we do cherish is our restaurants, especially our steakhouses! On today’s episode, co-host Vogue Robinson talks with artist and food writer, Brent Holmes about some of Vegas’ oldest and newest eateries that make up the quintes...
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May 3, 2023 • 22 mins
The circus arts are a major attraction for Las Vegas, but have you heard of the Las Vegas Circus Center? Where performers, celebrities, hobbyists and everybody else can take classes and practices their acrobatic skills. It is a true hidden gem in the city of glitz and glamour where the fundamentals of the performers we see all over the strip are honed and perfected. So our host Dayvid Figler invited acclaimed acrobat Scott McDonald...
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May 2, 2023 • 16 mins
After years of effort from activists, government officials, and Indigenous tribes, President Biden finally protected Avi Kwa Ame by declaring it Nevada’s fourth national monument in March. The 380,000 acres of land includes Spirit Mountain and is sacred to over 12 tribes. While celebrations happened all over the state, Governor Lombardo slammed the decision saying it was a “historic mistake” and that it would slow the development o...
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