CLARK COUNTY, NEVADA — BUILDING THE NEXT ECONOMY BEYOND THE LIGHTS

Clark County has built one of the most powerful destination economies in the world. In 2025, Las Vegas welcomed 38.5 million visitors, generating $50.8 billion in direct visitor spending and $80.9 billion in total economic impact.

The county’s hospitality, gaming, convention, sports, and entertainment ecosystem is not simply a legacy to protect. It is an extraordinary competitive platform that few regions could replicate.

But the same concentration that made Clark County globally distinctive also leaves its economy exposed. Southern Nevada remains highly specialized in leisure and hospitality, even as new opportunities take shape in health care, advanced manufacturing, technology and artificial intelligence, logistics, clean energy, defense, fintech, and sports innovation.

Clark County’s next challenge is not to turn away from its core economy. It is to build a more diversified layer around it, one that creates higher-quality jobs, strengthens fiscal resilience, and extends opportunity across the county.

THE MOMENT

Clark County is still growing, but the terms of that growth are changing. UNLV projects that the county will add approximately 117,000 jobs between 2026 and 2036, with the largest gains expected in accommodation and food services, health care and social assistance, and transportation and warehousing. That forecast captures both the opportunity and the risk. Clark County can allow its next decade of growth to reinforce existing concentrations, or it can use its infrastructure, talent, global reach, and culture of reinvention to compete in a broader set of industries.

The opportunity also looks different across 8,000 square miles. The Las Vegas Valley contains globally connected institutions, major commercial and industrial corridors, and emerging innovation assets. Laughlin, Boulder City, Mesquite, and Moapa Valley bring different economic conditions, infrastructure needs, and opportunities. The new strategy will help Clark County answer several defining questions:

• Which emerging industries offer the strongest evidence of lasting competitive advantage?
• How can Clark County connect industry growth to higher-quality jobs and realistic pathways for hospitality workers?
• Where can priority industries grow, given land, water, energy, transportation, and infrastructure conditions?
• What distinct strategies will allow urban and rural communities to build from their own assets?
• What organizational capacity will the County need to execute and sustain the strategy?

THE CIVIC SOLUTION

CivicSol is proud to partner with Clark County on this work. The engagement moves from economic analysis and market intelligence to industry prioritization, place-based investment strategy, organizational development, and implementation.

The engagement includes:

• Competitive benchmarking and countywide economic analysis to establish Clark County’s actual position relative to regional competitors and successfully diversified economies
• Industry cluster and emerging-trends analysis combining traditional economic data with real-time hiring, skills, and employer signals
• Workforce analysis connecting industry growth to education and training pipelines, job quality, and pathways for hospitality-dependent workers
• Corridor, land use, redevelopment, infrastructure, and natural-resource analysis showing where different industries can realistically grow
• A transparent framework ranking industries by job quality, talent alignment, competitive advantage, investment potential, infrastructure capacity, and fiscal return
• Engagement with employers, investors, universities, workforce partners, small businesses, residents, and urban and rural communities
• An organizational assessment addressing departmental structure, staffing, coordination, job descriptions, succession planning, leadership development, and accountability
• A three-year action plan, ten-year roadmap, and performance dashboard showing who is responsible and how progress will be measured

THE IMPACT

The result will be more than a list of target industries. It will show Clark County what to pursue, where to invest, who must lead, and how progress will be measured.

The strategy will help the County broaden its economic base, create clearer pathways to higher-quality jobs, connect industry priorities to specific places and infrastructure investments, modernize its incentives, and align its organization around execution.

Clark County does not need to abandon the economy that made it globally recognizable. It needs to use that economy’s infrastructure, talent, connectivity, and capacity for reinvention as the foundation for something broader.

The opportunity is to build beyond the lights, not away from them.

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