YERMO, CA – Along this dusty, desolate highway connecting Los Angeles to Las Vegas lies Peggy Sue’s 50’s Diner. Part Elvis, part alien, and part dinosaur-themed, the restaurant offers a bewildering, albeit memorable, aesthetic to accompany lunch.
Depending on one’s direction of travel, Peggy Sue’s is either a preview of Sin City’s coming attractions or one last gasp of “desert weird” before returning to Los Angeles. Yet it is what abuts Peggy Sue’s parking lot that is arguably more interesting for ClearanceJobs readers: Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow’s Yermo Annex.
On a recent visit, my family and I were lucky enough to observe desert warfare maneuvers by tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles from either the base or the U.S. Army’s massive Fort Irwin, which is also located nearby. That was an unexpected but fitting start to a Las Vegas trip designed to assess quality-of-life for someone contemplating a move to partake in the southwest desert’s booming national security sector.
It quickly became clear upon our arrival in Las Vegas that a lot more is booming there than just one industry. Signs of construction were everywhere and despite the 122-degree (yes, you read that right) heat in July, work wasn’t stopping – on the highway, the downtown corridor, or the housing subdivisions that have proliferated since my last visit just two years ago.
I wondered how much of that construction was the result of my fellow Californians fleeing our state’s notoriously high taxes, overcrowding, and prohibitive cost-of-living. The three recent California “expats” we met in 24-hours helped underscore the fact that an awful lot of Californians are, in fact, getting out of Dodge. But what interested me more on this trip was to validate what I’d heard from a friend and former colleague now living in the area: how rapidly the casinos and concert venues melt away into a livable city.
I’ve been to Las Vegas around a half-dozen times previously, but most visitors don’t come for the strip-malls and suburbia; they come for the classic Las Vegas experience. We, of course, made time for some of that, but the point of this trip was to get a brief flavor of life as a local.
With that in mind, we explored the tamer areas of Las Vegas proper by well air-conditioned car, along with the popular suburb of Henderson. We saw the usual signs of blight and societal ills one might expect in a large, metropolitan area, but they were no worse in magnitude than Los Angeles in 2024. (Yes, a low bar, but still…). By some measures – for example, the size of the homeless population – suburban Las Vegas seemed cleaner than Los Angeles. The in-your-face gambling, drinking, and “ladies of the night” disappear quickly with Las Vegas Boulevard and Fremont Street in the rear-view mirror.
At the same time, I saw what appeared to be signs of a thriving middle class with money to spend. Stores like Pottery Barn and Lululemon anchored well-manicured suburban shopping malls filled with apparently well-heeled shoppers sporting Nevada license plates and designer apparel. There was also a bustling Cheesecake Factory for any female royalty looking to cull the dating pool. (If you don’t get the pop-culture reference, here is some background).
Undoubtedly, some of the local clientele for these establishments are filling the myriad area job openings with defense and aerospace contractors – or working remotely for some of the same employers after relocating during the pandemic. Large employers like Raytheon, Leidos, Deloitte, and Booz Allen all advertise a presence here, and several federal agencies have regional offices in Las Vegas. The sprawling Nellis Air Force Base and Nevada National Security Site, home to the notorious “Area 51”, are both within commuting distance. And that doesn’t even factor into the equation some of the smaller start-ups in the defense and aerospace industry, many of whom find Nevada a better place to do business than neighboring California for its lack of corporate taxes and its right-to-work laws.
Yes, the heat can be challenging in the summer months, but the trade-offs are no state income tax and a cost of living that is considerably less than in California (and many other major metropolitan areas, for that matter). These benefits, coupled with cleared compensation rising significantly over the last five years, could make relocating to the Las Vegas area a financially savvy move for cleared workers entertaining a job offer or contemplating applying.
As for non-monetary quality-of-life issues, I found the Las Vegas of locals to be a far cry from the tourist trap of the Strip. Henderson and the planned community of Summerlin strike me as particularly decent places to raise a family, with a bonus for Henderson of being adjacent to Las Vegas International Airport for easy travel.
Perhaps Elvis was onto something with that whole “Viva Las Vegas” thing?
