We can predict the future and a 1981 DeLorean is not required, though it does fit the look. Back in 2001, UNLV’s Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER) using our yearly population forecast model predicted that there would be 2.336 million people (and 1.084 million workers) living in Southern Nevada by 2022. Fast forward: 2.375 million people currently reside in Clark County alongside a workforce of 1.065 million workers. Not bad for a forecast made 20 years ago. 

For more than 26 years, CBER’s annual population forecast has been used to help the Southern Nevada Water Authority, Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada, and others plan for future growth. Using our forecasts, the Southern Nevada Water Authority has reduced water consumption by 26 percent over the past 20 years despite an additional 750,000 more residents now calling Southern Nevada home.  

Just as our forecast helps agencies to identify the resources needed for our community to thrive, it also helps to identify the strengths and weaknesses of Southern Nevada’s economy. CBER’s forecasts predict not only the number of additional workers living in Southern Nevada by 2040 (310,540) but also the types of industries and occupations. We call this evolving project Roadmap 2040. The data helps to model what a diverse economy in Las Vegas could look like, which, similar to the population forecast, our government and business leaders can use as a planning tool to purposefully and proactively strengthen our current economic situation. 

The forecast raises hard questions as much as it provides answers. Such as, are we on track to diversify our economy? No. Despite our best efforts to date, the Hachman Index, a measure of economic diversification, grades the greater Las Vegas region at D-. We expect a C- by 2040 — an improvement, maybe, but no less vulnerable to the next economic downturn. This is because one in six additional jobs over the next 18 years will still be tied to a single industry.

Roadmap 2040 can serve as a guide to a more sustainable economy, by helping the greater Las Vegas community define success when it comes to economic diversification. Other urban communities have diversified their economies over the past 30 years, such as San Diego, Orlando, Denver, and Austin. These cities compare to Las Vegas with rich travel, leisure, and convention business. Yet they found a way to diversify their occupations and industry sectors. 

Roadmap 2040 suggests a focus on two industries: healthcare, and advanced manufacturing. With healthcare, we need not only to expand primary- and secondary-care facilities (hospitals and ambulatory care) but also clinical laboratories, research and development facilities, sports medicine, and clinical medical research. With manufacturing, the data identifies a need for focusing on industries of high value with low water footprints such as medical device manufacturing, certain electronic equipment, clean energy industrial manufacturing, and supply chains in and around critical metals and minerals. 

For every 1,000 new jobs created in healthcare (e.g., doctors, nurses, physician assistants, etc.) an additional 900 jobs appear in other industries (administrators, information technology, researchers, etc.). For every 1,000 new jobs created in manufacturing, as additional 1,268 jobs appear in other industries (transportation, warehousing, professional services, construction, etc.). 

The trend here is that spillovers into other industries exist beyond the two industries mentioned above. That’s the point. By investing in specific industries in one area, we create new businesses and jobs in other sectors. Roadmap 2040 teaches us that thinking of economic diversification in siloed industries is a mistake. Instead, diversification creates a dynamic economic organism that grows and thrives based on the success of the whole body. 

What’s missing from our model is not a lack of data or ideas, but, instead the degree of intention behind our actions.  Too often, after picking up the pieces from the last major economic shock, we commit to getting serious about diversification only to convince ourselves later when times are good that it was a one-of-a-kind, one-time, never-to-happen-again event. Yet, we are usually the first region to get hit and the last to recover after the next downturn. 

Roadmap 2040 does not tell us how many recessions we may experience over the next two decades, but chances are good that one will cause our unemployment rate to spike well into the double digits. This is not only costly for workers and businesses but taxpayers too. It’s time we had more intention about who we are and where we want to go. This is not growth for growth’s sake but about longevity, and it starts with Roadmap 2040. 

Andrew Woods is the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER) at UNLV.