  A five-dimensional Chern-Simons gravity theory based on the anti-de Sitter
group SO(4,2) is argued to be a useful model in which to understand the details
of holography and the relationship between generally covariant and dual local
quantum field theories. Defined on a manifold with boundary, conformal geometry
arises naturally as a gauge invariance preserving boundary condition. By
matching thermodynamic quantities for a particular background geometry, the
dimensionless coupling constant of the Chern-Simons theory is directly related
to the number of fields in a putative dual theory at high temperature. As a
consistency check, the semiclassical factorization of Wilson line observables
in the gravity theory is shown to induce a factorization in dual theory
observables as expected by general arguments of large N gauge theory.
