BEYOND THE GLITTER

Aaron Betsky’s “Future World” tour of Las Vegas (“Wizardry of Odds,” Dec. 12) ran aground in suggesting the desert playground as some sort of model for our failing cities.

Las Vegas-style urban solutions meet the particular needs of casino owners trying to attract money into their establishments but do little to help that city’s real problems. As Betsky himself notes, Las Vegas tends to actively exclude certain elements--well-serviced housing corridors, the homeless and children--that don’t fit neatly between its faux historical imagery and gambling dens. This sort of urbanism is close to virtual reality, minimizing our culture’s problems while manufacturing glossy facades and artificial histories to keep our senses overloaded.

As we enter the next millennium, we need to identify an authentic, expressive and egalitarian urban culture that isn’t merely fueled by escapist fantasies.

PETER A. ZELLNER

La Jolla

Las Vegas is an architectural wonder, but visitors get a quick cold shower in reality when they leave the Strip and drive downtown. The impoverished area in between consists largely of small motels, wedding chapels and tiny businesses and appears particularly dangerous at night. Unfortunately, fancy architecture, gleaming slot machines and high-tech video arcades haven’t smoothed out the economic inequalities that exist in every city on the planet.

MATTHEW OKADA

Pasadena

The photograph of the entrance to the Luxor’s Isis restaurant is not flanked, as you have stated, by caryatids, which are figures of women used as columns. Such obviously male figures are called telamones.

KENN G. MORRIS

Los Angeles

I kept looking for the word advertisement on the pages of the magazine’s Las Vegas “articles.” Was there anything in those pieces that the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce couldn’t have written? More journalism and less tourism, please.

BARBARA OSBORN

Los Angeles