Is there a collective term for small polities just outside the border of a larger polity that make their name off of, I guess, legal arbitrage? Providing things that are outlawed in the larger polity?

I mean what Monaco and its casinos are to France, or Macau and Singapore to China and southeast Asia, or Amsterdam and its drugging and whoring are to northern Europe. (Or maybe Bahrain to Saudi Arabia, but I’m not that clear on the specifics.)

I’m thinking mostly in terms of vice, but I suppose there’s major overlap with offshore banking, and there’s often a bit of smuggling based in the area.

America used to have Tijuana on the West Coast, and Cuba on the east. In the early 20th century Havana was a major American mafia town; the Cuban revolution and the need to create a replacement is a big part of how Las Vegas developed. Lonely desert Nevada was plenty willing to make a buck off legal arbitrage with looser gambling, prostitution, and marriage laws - offering no-fault divorce when other states didn’t, but also offering quick and easy marriage when other states required minimum ages, or parental permission, or waiting times and announcement, all intended to prop up family/patriarchal control of courtship in the face of the stability-undermining effect of frontier mobility. (Nevada here represents the solvent effect of frontier mobility. ‘Merica!) All the goofy Elvis instant-marriage chapels now are a relic of this, back when “elopement” was more of a real, actual thing. Just like Gretna Green.

You know, in an alternate timeline it could have been Hot Springs, Arkansas instead. For a while it was. Look at that page. “In 1944, the Army began redeploying returning overseas soldiers; officials inspected hotels in 20 cities before selecting Hot Springs as a redistribution center for returning soldiers… The soldiers had time to enjoy the baths at a reduced rate and other recreational activities.” Hmm.

Look at this official National Parks Service history: “Bathhouses [treating venereal diseases] employed special attendants, mercury rubbers, to administer the mercury ointment. The patient gave the prescribed mercury to the rubber who administered the ointment with either bare hands, a bath mitt, or a brush; later the rubbers wore gloves.” “[Attendants] took monthly physical examinations to make sure that patrons were not exposed to contagious diseases.” Hmmm.

Getting back to Havana, in other aspects, Miami picked up the slack. And Tijuana, I guess you can still go for prescription drugs, and San Diego teenagers down to drink, but Las Vegas stole a lot of its thunder too.

Of course now that we’ve got air transport some of that stuff’s moved even further offshore to, say, Thailand. But then, I’d be surprised if that region ever didn’t have that stuff. It’s right at the nexus of the Chinese and Indian Ocean coastal and the Asian archipelago trade routes, which means sailors; you’ve got mouths of the the Mekong and Chao Phraya systems, which means you’ve got the guys moving trade goods along inland routes (You know what we call guys moving trade goods along inland routes today? Truckers.); plus it’s been on the borderlands of various land empires, which means expats, functionaries and soldiers posted away from home.

(You know where in American history inland and coastal shipping met at the borderland of multiple empires? New Orleans.)

Look at all the temples, you’ll see how far the tourist trade goes back. Religious complexes are and always have been tourist sites. A lot of smaller ones, boasting the foot of St. Whoever or the largest statue of Buddha of this particular material in this particular pose, are like Wall Drug or the world’s largest ball of whatever - tourist traps located just off an otherwise featureless segment of major trade and transit routes, surviving by drawing in travelers eager for distraction. While the bigger ones become destinations of pilgrimage in their own right - the statistics I can find seem pretty speculative, but I hear around 10% of Muslims make Hajj in their lifetimes, while 70% of Americans visit one of the Disney parks.

(You know what’s a famous story about the coexistence of prostitutes and religious tourist destinations? The Hunchback of Notre Dame.)