Up until fairly recently, housing was VERY affordable.  Things have changed though in recent months.  Unless you already have a job, employment is harder and harder to find.  Even though housing is becoming more expensive, the cost of living remains pretty decent.

Utility bills such as water and electric are on the rise, we are in the middle of a serious drought so water is at a premium.  Natural gas remains affordable.  Car registration and insurance are among the highest in the nation as well as health care and health insurance.

It is really not a great place to raise kids.  Public schools for the most part are pretty bad.

On the plus side, the weather is about the best in the country,  People tend to be friendly once you get to know them, Food is cheap, and dining out is a better deal than cooking, and if you have steady employment, stay away from the casinos, it can be a nice place to live, but I plan to move away hopefully within the next 5 years.

I have been here 10 years and would have to be blasted out with dynamite.  The down side is all the strippers at the checkout counter at the supermarket.

Having no state income tax and a decent business environment are some pluses that have always attracted people to this state.

Housing and cost of living used to be key factors to attracting people to Las Vegas but as some have said, housing has gotten a bit overboard.  Might not be that big a deal for those that live in places where housing is already expensive (CA, NYC region, etc).  Cost of living is getting higher.  Gasoline and electricity prices mirror SoCal.  Natural gas isn't cheap anywhere anymore with more and more power plants go the "cleaner" natural gas route.  Water/sewer can get high with the current drought emergency we're in (going on 5 years I think).  Auto insurance rates are in the top 10 if not the top 5 regions in the country.  Your plate registrations are a bit pricey as well (to offset the lack of state income tax) and if you decide to move here, you're required to register your car and get a new license within 2 weeks.  With a pretty weak public transit system, you're pretty much required to have a car to get around.  On top of that, with the population in the area around 1.6 million and growing, traffic is getting progressively worse and new/expanding road construction is not keeping up (plus the surges when a big convention or event is in town).

In terms of jobs, it depends.  Lawyers tend to do really well with the amount of litigation that goes on (which accounts for the rather high auto and medical liability insurance rates in the area).  Doctors and nurses are always in short supply, and doctors are leaving because of the medical malpractice insurance rates.  Construction industry seems to be chugging along just fine and the service industry is massive.  There's still a small town mentality here so it's more who you know than what you know that will determine how well you do in the job market.  So without an in from someone, you might have to start at the bottom and work your way back up the food chain.  Because of the historical lower cost of living, salary levels tend to be lower here, and they haven't risen much to keep pace with the higher costs of living.  Some of the jobs require a background check (check with Metro at www.lvmpd.com).

Weather is fairly consistent.  300 days of sunshine in an average year.  Maybe 15 days of rain (watch out for flash floods).  It's a desert so the summers tend to get hot (and the inside of your car gets even hotter).  If you're a car person, you might be washing your car a lot to keep up appearances.

Entertainment:  Well, you have those high prices, high production shows and a pretty good selection to choose from.  That also goes for the dining as well.  There are lower end dining options but they aren't as plentiful as in other major metro areas (and sometimes harder to find).  Once you get away from the higher priced shows, the options greatly diminish.  You don't really have a good low end theater scene around here (where you get low production but a lot of blood, sweat, and tears poured into the mix).  The live music scene isn't as great either.  The big stars will come to town and sell (out) tickets for some outragous amount.  But your up and coming bands tend the blow off Vegas due to the lack of decent small venues to perform in.  There tends to be a lot of live music from bands that have had their heyday a while back playing in various places around town (usually at a casino) so if your longing for some formerly great band/artist coming through town, you might find them here (e.g., 38 Special playing the Silverton this Friday for $20).  Gaming is all over the place so you can generally find decent places to gamble (and crappy places like quick stops, grocery stores, bars/restaurants, etc).  The casinos will entice you with low cost or free dining/drinking options.  Plenty of bars (because they can make more money at the machines than via drinks).  Some decent nightclubs and afterhours clubs (seems weird in a 24/7 town).  

The Las Vegas Speedway is getting some better usage (beware of the traffic).

There are some benefits for being a local.  Some places will either reduce or kill the cover (from a hobby perspective, some of the gentlemen's clubs offer free cover to locals).  Of course, finding escorts with above average rates (compared to the rest of the country) makes it expensive to hobby here.

As for outdoors stuff, with the high heat, it's not that great.  Golf is expensive (cause of the water).  Bicycling is dangerous (due to the traffic).  Boating is a good option (Lake Mead not far away, and better places down the river like Lake Havasu; although the water levels are dropping due to the drought).  Having access to a pool is always a good thing.  In the wintertime, you have some options within a few hours drive (Mt. Charleston, or places in UT or CA).

Illicit drugs.  They're out there.  Probably easy to find.  Can't say since I work somewhere where they require random drug screening so I personally don't bother.

As for a place for kids, not great.  You get the transplants whining about the explicit raunch and sex on billboards.  Clark County school district is the 5th largest in the country now and they are always trying to get teachers (who leave because of the high housing costs) and the rate they send kids to college is poor.  The major university is UNLV (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) with a few smallers schools and CCSN (Community College of Southern Nevada).  A few speciality schools.  Which points to the overall slightly worse workforce available in the area.  Mini pluses for Andre Aggassi, Greg Maddux, and Kurt Busch (and some new golf phenom).

If you decide not to hobby, it's a bit odd since there are segments where people hook up, get married (very easy to do here) for sex, then get divorced/annulled.  Trust can be based on how long you've lived here.

So unless you've got a (good) job lined up already (and a backup plan or three) before getting here, I'd say don't bother since you'll probably wind up being one of those homeless people who can't leave town.

Bob

I don't get the spike in housing, I don't understand why all these people want to live here, but I'll take it as a homeowner in an UMC neighbourhood. I think the spike is over for now, though.

I wouldn't want to raise kids here at all. The stats are absolutely horrible all the way around, and frankly, it's such a negative environment to raise children in. I see working class families bringing their kids to places like Texas Station (very good eye candy day shift, BTW) for the buffet, and I cringe. Not as much as I cringed when I saw a family of five leave Fiesta at 2:30am last week. Or the after hours party in Henderson a couple of years ago: a neighbourhood of $300K tract homes populated by strippers and hookers and their "husbands", many of whom are convicted felons.

Like the way the casinos work, nothing here is what it appears to be. Nobody trusts anyone, although my neighbourhood has been around since 1998 and we're getting along pretty well these days and there's a sense of community. The phone company, Sprint, is the worst and should be a walking PUC sanction.

OTOH, if you're making coin and are young, reasonably attractive and single, or you're an entrepeneur with ambition and a plan, then Vegas may well be paradise. Even bad hustlers I know in this town are making bank. Unless, of course, you're new in town and want to sink $15 million into a strip club, but I digress.

Unless you can afford $400 for a date, Vegas is going to be tough if you like the girls. It's a tourist driven market, and will always be that way. At least the scene has improved dramatically over the last several years.

It's truly the Wild West and I love and hate every minute of it. Vegas has to a certain extent become a suburb of LA, that doesn't seem to be fair. I enjoy the contrasts that LA and LV have, and would prefer not to see a merger of the two.

The other comments here were well thought out-we all have our own little perspectives on the town. Hope this helps.