Comments on: Boom to Bust in Bend, Oregon
By Dave Skinner on 04-13-09
Bend is pretty much no longer tied at all to timber. Last time I was there the last wood-products site was covered with uppity retail. Bend went all the way over to the “new West amenity lone eagle” economic model.The town has ALL the amenities, the fancy-schmancy park downtown, the parkways and whatnot.
You’ll duly note the laid off timber lady they interviewed worked in Prineville, which is about 30 miles north and east of sister burg Redmond. Six mills and a railroad, now I think the railroad is toast and the mills gone.
The trouble here is that the “new West” model depends unduly on disposable income, on spillover from the rest of the economy. When that goes, we don’t even have a “rest of the economy” to fall back on.
By Nancy on 04-13-09
This article just proved my point of the earlier posts about the contradictory stories. The Flathead is NOT steps behind, we are already there and it’s not getting any better.
By sara on 04-14-09
Bend is a great small city with so many amenities and outdoor activities that even when unemployed -folks try to stay instead of going to where they can find work. Agree that builders poured in from Portland and elsewhere to try and take advantage of soaring prices. Areas hurting are those startup starter communities on the east end o town. Others holding up.
Flathead is similar but its distance from troubled California markets probably help it some.
By James on 04-18-09
I think the differences between the Flathead valley and Bend you talk about are just semantics. If anything Bend is better off than the Flathead valley because it at least has some economy other than housing. Many communities in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Utah that started off with hard scrabble economies based on timber or mining, found fortune in recreational real estate have now all gone bust, and I’m not so sure it’s coming back. All of these other states are currently in the top 10 states for foreclosures and I think the Flathead valley’s economy is much more similar to that of Idaho than the rest of Montana who didn’t go through the same boom to bust cycle as the Flathead valley. Things are bad here and being in denial won’t help it get better.
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