I was in a Las Vegas cab, heading from the airport to “the Strip” when I caught my first glimpse of it.

“Bloody hell,” I said. “It looks like they're building the Death Star.”

“It's the CityCentre,” corrected my cabbie, a long-haired and fidgety type. “A city-within-a-city. They say it's gonna cost more than $8 billion: the most expensive private land development in American history. Only in Las Vegas, huh?”

Indeed.

CityCentre - a joint venture between the 90-year-old corporate raider Kirk Kerkorian and Dubai World - is the kind of real estate project that could only happen in the heat and booze-frazzled lunacy of the Mojave desert. Not content with choosing one celebrity architect, the developers hired five: Norman Foster, Cesar Pelli, Daniel Libeskind, Rafael Viñoly and Helmut Jahn. Together they are creating an excesstropolis of almost comic proportions. Amenities will include a ten million sq ft hotel-casino, two other hotels, three apartment towers and a “retail and entertainment district” the size of one of Jupiter's moons.

All this probably sounded like a great idea two years ago, before Wall Street froze over and pundits started talking about the Great Depression II. These days it's hard to avoid the feeling that Sin City put its future on black just before the spinning ball of the economy landed on red. In total, the city's developers are $35 billion in the hole on projects such as CityCentre. If they're completed, Las Vegas will be a new city. If not, the entire house of cards could collapse.

One big project - the $2 billion Cosmopolitan hotel-casino - is already facing foreclosure after the developers missed loan payments. Another, the $6 billion Las Vegas Plaza, is rumoured to be facing delays, although this is officially denied. Even Donald Trump is getting worried and has put his plans for a second luxury apartment tower on hold. Others are concerned that all this financial pressure is resulting in sloppy construction practices. Over recent months nine workers have died in eight accidents at various sites: one man was cut in half by when a counterweight for a CityCentre lift fell on top of him.

In the old days, Las Vegas couldn't have cared less what was going on in the rest of the US economy. But ever since the likes of Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal were run out of town in the late 1980s, the city has been downplaying vice in favour of business conferences, three-starred Michelin restaurants, and French-Canadian acrobatic troupes. Old Lefty - who not only survived several recessions, but also a direct hit with a car bomb - must be laughing himself to sleep at night in his Miami retirement home.

There's an upside to the imminent death of Las Vegas: the place is a lot more fun than it used to be. There's less traffic, the restaurants are less crowded and you can actually get some elbow room at the blackjack tables. My advice to anyone planning a trip: do it sooner rather than later, while you still can.

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