For the second time this year, The Bulletin has carried a story that seems aimed at dispelling persistent speculation that people are moving away from Bend in droves.
“Locals stay put in tough economy,” read the headline on the front of the Local section this morning. The story quoted officials of local moving companies saying that their business has dropped off dramatically. One of them, Bryan Murphy, general manager of Allied Prestige Moving & Storage, said his business is down 50% to 60% this year.
But does this mean the locals are “staying put”? Not necessarily. As The Eye has pointed out before, moving company numbers are not the best indicator of who’s moving and who’s not; only those who are fairly affluent and/or have the move paid for by their companies typically hire a mover. Murphy acknowledged this factor, telling The Bulletin that more homeowners seem to be moving themselves these days.
Downtown merchant and blogger Duncan McGeary, for one, is skeptical, saying the Bulletin story “sure doesn’t jibe with what I’m hearing from my customers. The same way that a few years ago I’d get the excited comment, ‘We’re moving to Bend!’ nowadays I hear a much more subdued, ‘We’re leaving Bend.'”
McGeary’s theory is that people are either moving themselves or waiting for the school year to end. If the latter is true, we might see a big exodus in June and July.
But The Eye has a hunch that if the locals are staying put, in many cases it’s simply because they can’t unload their houses. And that isn’t likely to get easier any time soon, with more than 3,600 homes currently on the market in Deschutes County according to RealtyTrac.com.
While we don’t agree – yet – with the BendBubble2 blog that Bend is about to turn into a ghost town, our sense is that the population either already is dropping or soon will be, maybe dramatically. With one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, people eventually are going to have to leave and go where more jobs are – even if that means selling their homes at a sacrifice or just walking away from them.
Addendum: Ethan Lindsey of OPB has reported that the growth in the workforce in Bend is almost entirely due to people (retirees, spouses, etc.) re-entering the job market, not to new people moving here.
This article appears in Apr 23-29, 2009.
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While the outmigration due to unemployment can certainly happen, all the demographers I’ve talked to say the problem is we won’t really see that (at least not on a grand scale) this time, because there isn’t anyway for the people to move _to_ with a good employment market.
Maybe someone should check with U-Haul; they take reservations and it might be interesting to see what the local ones have on their lists for June and July. Moving companies won’t be the best barometer in this economy when it comes to who is leaving Bend.
What about asking the do-it your self movers like U-Haul and Budget how many one-way out of town rentals they have seen lately? There’s your answer.
You would think that the great lifestyle would keep people here.
Born in Oregon, and finally had a chance to move to Bend. That lasted about as long as the bubble, and now? Moving out of state, again, because Oregon can’t seem to keep an economy going for more than 5 years at time. Can’t eat the scenery, folks.
Leaving Bend may not be such a bad thing. Staying would seem to make it worse as Bend and surrounding areas cannot keep up with building schools. Bend is one of those places that has become over populated in many ways without the new people paying for the services that are needed to keep people here, such as schools, police and fire, to say the least about social services in attempting to deal with the droves of people that have shown up here without money.
So people leaving really is not all that bad a thing , because in many ways Bend and county are way over populated to keep up with all the services required to support a growing population, which would include the jails which are not that old and already too crowded because of the increase in people.
Bend in many ways has become over built. Some of that is good as it will drive the price of housing down, which is badly needed because most of the jobs if there are any pay about minimum wage, which a person cannot realistically live on any longer, even though minimum wage has gone up drastically, but the wages are not keeping up with the cost of living, because so many were coming in at one time and still are only to find they cannot afford to live here, which brings an increase in crime and a decrease in having a livable place in Bend.
“What about asking the do-it your self movers like U-Haul and Budget how many one-way out of town rentals they have seen lately?”
Good idea — I may do that if I get around to it.
Another point: Local schools report declining enrollments. If people aren’t moving out, why is that happening?
“there isn’t anyway for the people to move _to_ with a good employment market.”
True, for now. But I think other areas will recover sooner than Bend because they had a broader and more solid economic base to begin with. Here, almost the whole economy was based on the real estate bubble — everybody and his aunt was either building houses or selling them.
“You’d think the great lifestyle would keep people here”?! What a naive crock! People have to be able to afford the lifestyle to enjoy it! Lets face it folks, the powers that be in Bend and Deschutes County have done a piss poor job creating economic diversity by putting all of their eggs in the real estate and development basket. They have let developers slide on paying for vital services and infrastructure for years. Now these developers are going bankrupt and sticking the taxpayers with the bill. Not to mention the huge numbers of people now on unemployment that have lost their jobs. Resort jobs, restaurant jobs, and retail jobs don’t pay the bills, so bring more resorts and more development to a region already overdeveloped has never been the answer. Central Oregon needs to be putting efforts in to attract high paying jobs and industries that will support the cost of living in Central Oregon. Until that happens people like myself will continue to move to places where the jobs are and will only be visiting Central Oregon.
Why move? Bend is not the only city where unemployment is high. I read that this is happenning across the U.S. and the world, so where in the world are you going to go to get a good job and it is safe to live????
I live here in Bend because it is a safe city to raise my kids, I came from the Los Angeles area and worried about the safety of my kids at school or even playing in a park.
For 40 years, Bend’s population has been like the fall tides on the coast. Goes out periodically but comes back bigger each time. And each in comming tide brings a new breed of flotsom.
Tricia, my comment was a sarcastic remark.
I’ve observed that when people say they moved to Bend for “safety” or “to get away from crime,” very often that’s code for “to get away from all those black and brown people.”
There is PLENTY of crime in Bend — just watch the daily news or read your daily newspaper. And there’s plenty of drug and alcohol abuse and traffic fatalities. Maybe we don’t have drive-by shootings, but there are LOTS of ways for kids (and adults) to get in trouble.
It doesn’t surprise me that there may be a start of an Exodus from Bend. The 6 1/2 month winters, poor road conditions, eroding infrastructure, poor job market, little to offer culturally, growing liberal/socialist bias, raping property owners with higher taxes to cover failed ballot measures, et al, are enough to make a person reconsider why they moved here in the first place. Especially those non-affluent “baby boomer” retirees. Not everyone can afford to hop on a plane to escape Bend to shop in Portland, Seattle, or San Francisco due to Bend’s limited product(s) offerings. Actually making an Exodus from OREGON period is not a bad idea when there are much better and less costly places to live in America.
Winston: I’m with you 100% except for the “liberal/socialist” lament. This town is still too far right for me. (But if you’re a regular reader you already know that.)
BTW have you ever tried that thing called “the Internet” for shopping? It’s amazing what you can find out there!
6:45 a.m., Tuesday, April 28 in Bend, Oregon. Weather: 35 degrees and snowing. Forecast: Cloudy with rain and snow showers, high 43, low 26.
Just three words of comment:
“Paradise” my ass!
Lead story in today’s Bulletin: “Redmond schools weigh 4-day week”
Who was saying Central Oregon is “a great place to raise kids”?
Great place to raise ’em if you want a brood of functionally illiterate meth-heads.