Bruce Katz from the Brookings Institution tells us how Nevada can rethink its approach to business and innovation and bring Las Vegas out of the recession. And the key factors in creating and sustaining jobs and a strong educated workforce.

In this crucial election year for Nevada it’s troubling that the Republican candidates for governor seem to have taken a “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” approach to diversifying our economy and improving our quality of life.

So I’ve just been in Las Vegas where Metro Program Director Bruce Katz gave a speech at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) on the next American economy and what might drive it in Southern Nevada.

Who is going to lead this?

It was a very simple question that Ted Quirk asked at a gathering Monday afternoon at UNLV. The answer, however, was not so simple.

A group of business leaders, government officials and scholars gathered Monday at UNLV to discuss Nevada’s future. Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution, which has been studying the Mountain West, brought the group together to talk about how Nevada could position itself for the “new economy.”

The auditorium at UNLV was filled about to capacity, some 150 business leaders, scholars and government people, gathered to discuss Nevada’s future and how to pull it out of the Great Recession.

Bruce Katz, vice president of the Brookings Institution, will speak at an invitation-only event today at UNLV. He’ll also lead a panel that will include MGM Mirage CEO Jim Murren.

Katz and Brookings, whose Mountain West Initiative is at UNLV, are on the forefront of thinking about how the United States and areas such as the Sun Belt need to transform their economies. With the recession winding down, Southern Nevada will need to rethink its economy to prevent another debt-fueled collapse.

For the past four decades, ever since Kevin Phillips coined the term in his 1969 book,"The Emerging Republican Majority," most Americans have known what the Sunbelt is. It is the huge swath of territory running south along the Atlantic from the southern border of Virginia to Florida, then west to Texas and all the way to California.

Nevada's economy typically roars back from recession, but not this time around. We're joined by Mark Muro, one of the authors of the Brookings Mountain Monitors Report. He tells us why Nevada continues to struggle even as the nation inches forward.