Las Vegas fell 20 places to #47 in a sustainability index published by the website SustainLane.com. The ranking measures a number of categories such as street congestion, air and water quality, and green building (LEED certification). According to the index, Las Vegas ranks high in energy and climate change policy, green building and low natural disaster risk. Our issues with our tight water supply, metro street congestion, and air quality overwhelmed the positives and pushed us towards the bottom of the list.

The top five cities included Portland, San Francisco,  Seattle, Chicago, and New York City. Among other desert cities, we ranked ahead only of Mesa, AZ (#50), with Albuquerque leading the list at #18.

Fewer cars are being stolen in the Las Vegas area. In fact, thefts are down 32 percent from the same time last year. If the numbers hold, Metro police will have cut the number of auto thefts in Las Vegas by more than half since 2006.

The area with the largest drop was the Las Vegas Strip which saw a 40 percent decrease. Police say that people are being more aware.

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Most of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority’s numbers were still heading in the wrong direction in July. The only positive number in this month’s report was a small increase in convention goers (up 0.6 percent) and total number of conventions held (up 8.9 percent). Sadly the economic impact from these increases was actually 3.7 percent lower than July of last year.

Gaming revenue was especially hard hit, falling 15 percent for Clark County as a whole.

The average daily room rate in Las Vegas fell 10 percent to $105.97. The year to date average fell 6.6 percent to $126.51.

(All figures are year over year comparisons)