Las Vegas, best known for its glamorous and glitzy nightlife, is an international gambling mecca. The city’s tolerance for the adult entertainment found in its casino-hotels has earned it the moniker ‘Sin City’. Beyond the bling of the The Strip and Downtown, however, you’ll find green belts and park settings scattered throughout valley neighborhoods, with walking trails, bike paths, playgrounds and tennis courts, water features, rock-climbing walls, and lakes and ponds ripe for fishing. Family-centric activities can be found just about anywhere. These, coupled with Vegas’ open vistas, blue skies, the night-time views provided by the lights on the Strip, its dry summer heat and warm evenings, deliver a positive city living experience. The face of Vegas is changing, however. Nevada’s biggest city crouches in a dry basin in the sparsely populated Mojave Desert. The 22-million-gallon Bellagio fountain, the blue canals inside the Venetian hotel and the city's prolific golf courses have long sat at odds with the surrounding desert environment. In a bid to make the city more sustainable, the authorities have imposed prohibitive water rates, water use permits and water waste fines. These have triggered a trend among residents to rip up their lawns in favour of desert plants, and in extreme cases, to empty their swimming pools. Just as local property prices are soaring, so too, is the ground temperature…