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BBC to Tell the World About Bend's Bust
Bend's notoriety as Bubble Capital of the US is about to go global: The Eye has learned from an unimpeachable source that the BBC is
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What about the construction workers/builders the real Bend residents that are all out of work with families and mortgages. Where is the dough to help them, stimulus? We Bendites hope those rich snobby Californias will just go back home to Babylon and leave what jobs there are for us real folk.
As a unemployed builder myself I feel the pain, but it wasn,t the Californians buying the houses. The problem started with greed, greed by the city and greed by the BIG builders seeing dollar signs. If we as a city could have slowed the onslought of the BIG builders coming from all over the state and further, we wouldn’t be in as big of a mess as we are today. The bottom line is people are GREEDY.
A bit selfish, aren’t you “mayandanbaja”? If it weren’t for Bend’s growth the healthcare, infrastructure, tourist industry, construction industry, et al, would be much less than currently offered. Sure there’s been some wealthy “out of towners” moved to Bend but wealth brings support for many businesses here. What bugs me is the local politicians are so slow moving to make Bend clean of blight – when all they’d need to do is condemn property blight on major arterials and force owners to clean it up or knock it down.
There was a lot going on that brought Bend to it’s knees, and blaming only one group, versus everyone involved is a viscious cycle. It got so bad for my husband and I – construction with college, very low income and a severe lack of available work – that the only option we had was for him to re-enlist in the Marine Corps. We love Bend, but without work or real income, we had no choice but to leave. I was not suprised when the boom fell apart, and a lot of us saw it coming. Hopefully, the town officials have learned a lesson, and will put measures in place to prevent an identical scenario from happening in the future.
Why all the suprise? You could see it coming. Bend is very over rated. Its just another 8 dollar an hour town with a view.
BBC’s doing a special will be a boom to Bend. When it was in publications that we were high, we felt damaged. Now the opposite will help. When a special was done on Maupin, i.e. the mill moving and houses couldn’t be sold, people came to see if real estate was at last a bargin. This was the turn-a-round event for them.
I agree with Winston 100%. The city needs to do something
I’m going to come clean with you guys, and hopefully you won’t hate me too much. I think I’ll come around to good news by the end.
I am a Californian (retired more than job-seeker). I saw Bend in best places to live lists over the years, but being the sort who hates to be the last into a hot market, I avoided it. Oregon as a whole looked really nice to me, but looked “bubbled.”
When I heard about Bend’s stall, I got interested again and went up for a look (3 weeks back). It is (as you know) a really nice place, but (as you know) I did see a few empty houses.
The local economy needs those to be soaked up by buyers, ideally by people who will bring money.
The good news is that the BBC will bring a few of them out.