Aug. 20--DOHA, Qatar -- Barnaby Phillips, Al Jazeera's Europe correspondent, travelled across the US to find out what ordinary Americans feel about five key electoral issues.

In part one of American Challenge, he investigates the declining US economy and finds out how voters are struggling to cope.

On the Las Vegas Strip, there's little sign that the US economy is in trouble.

Glamorous, or merely garish, the Strip -- a four mile stretch of huge casinos and outrageously themed hotels -- appears to be in rude health.

Neon signs and fireworks light up the sky, the heavy traffic moves at a snail's pace, and the pavements are crowded with jostling crowds.

At the southern end of the Strip, there is a forest of cranes, and a vast construction site.

They are building new, even bigger hotels and casinos, for more people to spend, spend, spend.

So, perhaps, as they used to say, Vegas really is recession-proof, oblivious to the economic pain now being felt elsewhere in the US.

The truth is a little more complicated. Fewer visitors are coming, and those that do come are spending less money. Casino stocks have slumped.

Across the US, the housing market is in crisis, but the state of Nevada, in which Las Vegas is the largest city, has been hit especially hard.

Developers who cashed in during the boom years have suddenly found they cannot sell their properties.

I met one developer, Frank Pankratz, who is overseeing the construction of a lavish new estate to the west of Las Vegas.

Two towers have already gone up, and a vast residential-shopping village is scheduled to follow.

The timing might not appear auspicious, but Frank has sold most of the luxury apartments in the towers, some for more than $20 million.

He argues that confidence will soon return to Vegas, and he'll be able to sell the remainder, although he concedes that his job is "less hard work when the economy is banging on all twelve cylinders".

If it wasn't for the economic downturn, Frank would have hoped to have sold all his properties by now. So it seems that even the super-rich are a little bit more cautious these days.

But elsewhere in Las Vegas there is real pain.

Bob Massi is a lawyer who has lived here for 35 years.

"You have real estate brokers and real estate agents who have gone out of business, you have mortgage companies that have gone out of business, so it's felt here like never before," he says.

Foreign takeovers

I left Vegas, and its glitzy lights, and traveled 2,500km east, to the city of St Louis, on the banks of the Mississippi river.