He counted 2,137 new home sales in May at a median price of $239,145, an increase of $38,385, or 19.2 percent, from the same month last year.

Home prices will continue to rise in correlation with the price of land, Smith said.

Pulte Home paid $308,000 to $319,000 an acre for 47 acres in the master-planned Aliante community in North Las Vegas and KB Home paid $328,000 an acre for 17 acres in the same area.

Focus Property Group and a consortium of home builders won the bidding for 1,940 acres in Henderson at the most recent Bureau of Land Management auction, shelling out nearly 280,000 an acre. With engineering and infrastructure costs, a "finished" acre is projected to go for $550,000.

When a city tops an economic gauge for six years straight, people may wonder: "What will stop the reign?"

That's the question facing Las Vegas, which has topped the University of Central Florida's Private Construction Intensity Index every year since 1999.

The 2003 index, released in May, shows Las Vegas had a list-topping 48.11 rating, nearly 10 points ahead of second-ranked Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif. (38.81). Las Vegas' score was 17.6 percent higher than a year ago (40.9), and 17.5 percent higher than two years ago (40.11).

Las Vegas also remained atop the index's first-quarter edition, released last week, with an 11.29 score, still slightly more than 10 points ahead of Riverside-San Bernardino.

When editors of The New York Times were recently casting for a quintessential American city to profile in a special supplement, they didn't take long to decide on Las Vegas as the new metropolis that symbolises the dreams of many Americans.

That recognition from the most influential paper in the US, capped a remarkable cultural rise by the mafia-founded desert city, which in recent months has become a staple of the American TV diet, replacing cities such as Miami, Los Angeles and New York as the backdrop against which America tells its stories.

It seems there is always a Vegas-based show on cable television, no matter what time of the day, or day of week you tune in.

It seems there is always a Vegas-based show on cable television, no matter what time of the day, or day of week you tune in.

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