AT A PICTURESQUE TURNING OF the Deschutes River, at the eastern edge of Oregon’s Cascade Mountains, where the arid scrub brush of the high desert gives way to Ponderosa pine, sits the town of Bend. For most of the twentieth century, Bend survived as a small logging town, set amidst scattered ranches. By the mid-1950s, when its population still barely topped 11,000, the logging industry began a long downward slide, ending with the closure of the town’s last mill in 1994.1
In the 1970s, however, unlike many similar towns in the Northwest, Bend began to capitalize on the natural assets of its beautiful location and sunny weather to attract active vacationers and early retirees, especially from California.2 Deschutes County, of which Bend is the county seat, became one of the fastest growing places in America: from 1970 to 2013, its population skyrocketed from 30,442 to 165,954. Construction and real estate accounted for nearly twice as many jobs in Deschutes County as elsewhere in Oregon. In the 1990s alone, Bend itself nearly tripled in population, from 20,469 to 52,029.3
With the tidal wave of newcomers came a substantial rise in per capita income and property values, along with all the familiar features of rapid development—traffic jams, a construction boom, and controversies about the advantages and disadvantages of “growth.” Compared to many other boom towns, however, the classic cleavages between newcomers and old-timers, and between pro-growth and anti-growth advocates, were muted by the town’s tradition of civic friendliness and by the cornucopia of new wealth.
Underneath the prosperous surface, however, a deeper social fault line opened. Longtime residents working in real estate and construction prospered, along with the affluent newcomers and the stockbrokers and financial consultants who set up shop to serve them. But unskilled laborers from the dying timber industry and the surrounding rural areas faced real poverty. Many could find jobs only in low-wage sectors like fast food restaurants or low-skill construction. Many others ended up jobless.4 In fact, even though per capita income in the Bend statistical area grew by 54 percent in the 1990s, the number of residents living below the poverty line doubled, and the ratio of low earners to high earners rose from seven to one to nearly 12 to one.5 The rising tide of prosperity in Bend definitely did not raise all boats.
Unlike many cities elsewhere in America, segregation in Bend is mostly economic, not racial. The town remains overwhelmingly white (91 percent) and not much affected by Hispanic immigration (only 8 percent Latino). Bend’s poverty is concentrated on the east side of town. In 2008–2012, the child poverty rate in one census tract was 43 percent, more than ten times the rate in the upscale tract just across the river, on the west side of town.6 (See Figure 2.1.)
Social service workers are acutely aware of poverty among the less skilled residents, but this persistent poverty in the midst of the boom is invisible to most upscale residents of Bend. In part, this invisibility is attributable to the growing segregation between the upscale gated communities in the hills on the west side of town, with their landscaped traffic circles, microbreweries, and public artwork; and the dreary, downscale east side desert, with its strip malls, pawn shops, and trailer parks.