Las Vegas is one of my least favorite places on the planet. To me, it’s always seemed like a tremendous waste of resources; everything I don’t like about big cities wrapped up into one sprawling, air-conditioned package.

But now it looks like the city might be going on a serious greening-spree.

Treehugger’s got the dirt on MGM’s CityCenter, a new 76-acre development on the Vegas Strip that aims to be the largest structure in the United States to receive a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification.

There’s a lot I like about this – the fact that the builders are doing it without knowing exactly how much money they’ll save on energy, but knowing that the quality of life will improve; the building’s re-use of old materials from all over the world; the fact that they’re basically tearing down a giant section of Vegas to try to fix it … but most of all the hope that it will inspire other developers in the resource-hungry West to follow suit.

It’ll be three years before the mini-city opens, and I’d be totally down with going to check it out. Except, you know, I’d still be in Vegas.

Check out the development’s site here.

Tags: Environmentalism