Rubbish...
Some people focus on provided stuff like drugs throughout history, plus already you had it in Fallout 1:
People and economies are two different things. For example, the hillbillies have been brewing their own booze like crazy but it took the prohibition laws and suddenly created and starved market to turn it in a proper economy.
Firstly they absorbed surrounding communities like "The Hub", its not only Shady Sands...
Absorbed or not, it's an insane level of growth and prosperity.
Secondly they didn't probably it invent, but rather rediscover it.
Vaults, abandoned research facilities (like West Tek) etc.
Hell of a feat for ex-villagers.
Because people couldn't possibly want a "portable" & "personal" option...
Every little village, mine, and prospecting site is important enough to warrant its own brothel.
Every caravan always includes a prostitute...
Local demand would be met by local supply (i.e. women willing to sell sex for money/goods/services have never been in short supply). If the demand grows, it will be satisfied by out-of-towners moving in and setting up shop. See Deadwood, which had a fairly realistic portrayal of a growing town. At first, the local shithole and dirty whores handle the demand, when it grows and/or the need for classier, cleaner whores arises, they move in.
Vault Dweller
If we accept your assumptions that a narco economy is a developed world thing exclusively...
I believe it serves the developed world, thus can't exist without it.
... and that a vice town of this style and scope could not be motivated to exist in the FO2 universe, what kind of things would? Surely prostitution and gambling would exist in some form, for instance, as would hired muscles, and people who run these things being inspired by and really getting into pre-war pop culture imaginary is also reasonable (since the entirety of FO is based on that). So what would a reasonable New Reno look like?
Some form - yes, absolutely. Things like drugs, whores, gambing, hired muscles are as old as mankind. The question is what form it should take. Take organized crime, for example. Bandits, smugglers, gangs have always existed but the concept of organized crime (as we understand it and as it was presented in Fallout 2) is only a few centuries old. Even the famous Sicilian mafia is a product of the 19th century. Why? They had the concept of clans, they had weapons, bandits, hired thugs, but the prerequisites didn't exist and neither did the mafia.
Anyway, Fallout set up the scene: the world ended, dust settled, mankind has crawled from under stones and ruined it waited out the apocalypse and the repopulation begins. We see villages, old vaults, ruined cities, old military bases, etc. Nothing is out of place or ahead of the timeline. Basically, it's the Great Beginning.
Fast-forward 80 years, which isn't a lot of time to develop fully blown societies and cities with parks but enough to build something. Shady Sands could have grown into a town. Den could have been rebuilt into a proper town (no longer squatters living in ruins). The next logical step should have been about the ethics. Mankind survived, dodged the mutant threats, and built the first towns. Now what?
Let me quote from an old Deadwood article:
Although the series touches on a variety of issues including race, prostitution, misogyny, violence, politics and immigration, most of the major story lines are grounded in this issue of bringing order from chaos. The series can be conceptually framed by the major plot points that govern the changing status of the city:
Law in Deadwood: In the first season, the major focus of the story is on the rivalry between Swearengen and Bullock. Swearengen governs the city like a warlord and Bullock is the only significant opposing voice. By the end of the season, a compromise is brought in where law stands in the town, albeit with concessions.
Politics in Deadwood: Toward the end of the first season and governing the second and third seasons, the status of Deadwood within the United States becomes the most critical issue. A variety of business and political forces repeatedly push for either sovereignty or absorption into other territories or towns. The show takes great pains to show the corruption of the political interests and their ability to employ a level of violence matching Swearengen's.
Business in Deadwood: Initially foreshadowed by Cy Tolliver's arrival in Deadwood in the first season, business interests from beyond are studied at length. As with politics, the show juxtaposes Swearengen's violence with that of Tolliver and George Hearst. Whereas Swearengen is overtly brutal, Hearst masks his involvement in apparently random attacks and violence.
Architecture in Deadwood: The buildings progress from crude walled tents at the outset of the first season to more elaborate buildings by the second season with key structures getting fitted with window glass.
Power in the United States: In short, the series accurately depicts the role of entrepreneurial vice lords in generating political communities. Swearengen is shown dispensing patronage like a typical "political machine boss" which is not as far-fetched as it may seem. Saloons were sometimes used for political debates, criminal trials and assorted other gatherings. Infamous councilmen in Chicago's Levee District, for example, were concurrently saloon owners, gang bosses and pimps. Gangs could be counted on to "get out the vote" of whichever immigrant community with which their boss had sympathies or connections.
The changing nature of the American West: The series follows the dying days of the 'Wild' West, as the rugged individualism that drove people like Seth Bullock to set up in the camp is undone and replaced by corporate capitalism, bigger government and the corruption inherent in either structure. Eventually, the camp is changed entirely, with individual prospectors moved out and all the local gold mining consolidated into George Hearst's holdings.
This methodical development is what's missing in Fallout 2. Instead they borrow a page from Bethesda and jumps straight to theme parks for your amusement.
a Mauser in Fallout 1?)
game...
excuses for that...
