Conclusion: Social Capital and the Quality of Life in Nevada

Our contributors have presented data and analyses which bring up questions Nevadans need to raise when they talk about the kind of home we want Nevada to be. We must take seriously their findings, their recommendations, and their pleas for help. These social indicators must be re-visited periodically. We make a beginning today, but we need to sustain public discussion of these problems of poor social capital in our home town and home state. Aristotle mentioned that a large number of people in one place does not make a community – practices, customs, institutions, and a shared moral culture change a lot of people into fellow citizens in a community. We are the raw materials, but we have not yet done enough community-building. Nevada, or Las Vegas, may market itself as enticing, amoral, and libertarian, but behind the stage-settings, we lack not only the physical but also what I call the “moral infrastructure” we need to live safely and fruitfully together