Atlantic City

Everything dies baby that's a fact,/But maybe everything that dies someday comes back;/Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty,/And meet me tonight in Atlantic City

Bruce Springsteen's lyrics sum up the gambling town of Atlantic City - it ruled, it died and it's wearily staging a comeback.

At it's height the city was the vacation destination for playboys and starlets, but the vestiges of these high times are crumbling beside bold new casinos. The Boardwalk - the world's first - has become an odd collection of fortress-like gambling houses punctuated by T-shirt stands and gyros stalls.

Plucky revival efforts to spruce the place up can't hide the fact that Atlantic City is an overdeveloped, dishevelled, aging beauty who had it all and let it go to waste. After years of experimenting with gambling, the city is still waiting to see how the dice fall.