Statistical Space
According to the 2020 Census, the population of the entire Las Vegas, Henderson, and Paradise, Nevada Metropolitan Statistical Area was 2,811,488. To put that in perspective, the same Census counted 3,104,614 for the entire State of Nevada. When I do the arithmetic, I find that Las Vegas accounts for fully 90.5% of the total population of the State of Nevada. Without troubling to look-up the official size of the physical area of urban sprawl known universally as Las Vegas, to any observer a mass-density dynamic should be obvious.
Nevada is not the American state with the lowest population. Nevada ranked #32 on the list for 2020. Again (for perspective), that means the Metropolitan Las Vegas Area's population is larger than that of the entire State of New Mexico (which ranks #36.) The population of Las Vegas is also larger, in turn, than each of the next 13 States on the list. The population of Greater Las Vegas is larger than the combined 2020 populations of Alaska (733,406), District of Colombia (678,972), Vermont (647,464), and Wyoming (584,057).
We could go on with quantifiable perspectives. The simple fact that 90.5% of an aggregate population living in a tiny percent of a vast physical expanse (as does Las Vegas, Nevada), is mind-boggling. It makes me wonder what's out there, in the area occupied by the other 9.5% of an entire State's population, and all of it enjoying all the rights and opportunities afforded by our great Nation. As a matter of fact, I have been out back a few times. It's spectacular! It has all the nothingness one could ever ask. I'm reminded of the trite, "wasteland," but it's sublime enough in itself not to require rhetorical hyperbole.
Don't get me wrong. I knew what I was getting into before I relocated to this region. I knew what to expect. I was prepared for anything. Another world? No problem. I went with a prior idea I got from what they say about Rome: “Why did they (the Romans) build it in such an ugly place?” The same could be said about Las Vegas. Granted, Las Vegas is not Rome. The difference is that, unlike Las Vegas, Rome's location was fate. Las Vegas is where it is by design. Another is, nobody was ever expected to walk to Las Vegas. Las Vegas was founded where it is to keep the barbarians out (unlike Rome.)
If an estimate of an evenly-distributed population of the State of Nevada is 11 persons per square kilometer, that is equivalent to approximately 100 square meters, per person. If you didn't grow up in a metric culture, lacking a feel for metric data, then consider 100 square meters is approximately equal to 1,076 square feet. Then, consider a square rectangle of 1,076 square feet measures just under 33' on a side. Finally, picture a vast tile floor consisting of 3,104,614 squares of about 33' on a side, and each square an allotted cell for every individual counted in the 2020 Census.
We could compare this model of the data to other locations. That's for another day. I would only add, at this time, that when certain persons find a hot spot cold, that they are responding to the statistical distance between people. How, indeed, can more people fit in a place than has square feet to stand on? By stacking, floor upon floor, apartment upon apartment (is how.) My dwelling at this time accounts for approximately one-fourth the standard, person-per-square, statistical model for Nevada. Eight tenants occupy the cement block, four units on the first level, four on the second level. That's common, 'round here.
Now, consider that residential buildings of 10, 20, 30 (and more), floors can accommodate multiples of the standard density per-square-foot. Like penguins huddled in the Antarctic winter to conserve precious body heat, it's easy to see how certain people find a northern city like New York "warm." By warm, they mean cozy. It's a social sense, a peculiar combination of the five physical senses, interpreted by the mind as belonging. My existential dilemma begins when the social temperature gets too warm for comfort. My mind wanders at such times to that vast emptiness, a short trip beyond the hillsides surrounding the Las Vegas Metropolitan Valley, where the only noise is that of the wind.