So now that you've read the preceding article, I do have some commentary on it.

Yes, the timing is a bit off, as you might expect from the writer who's only been here for 3 years. Gated communities aren't recent, and have more to do with the human impulse for exclusivity than for any real need.

I have no desire to go back to the Bend of under 20,000 population, much less the town of 13,000 I grew up in. To me, the golden age of Bend was around 1990. We'd finally recovered from the 80's recession, downtown and both malls were vibrant, even the 3rd St. strip was seeing a bit of renewal. Almost every category of commerce was being filled -- pre - category-killer -- by locals. The waves of newcomers were still of a mind of trying to fit into the local culture.

Then boom. Fred Meyer, followed by nearly every other national chain, and the cheapening of Bend began, with succeeding waves of newcomers simply overwhelming us.

What no one really understands is that the Powers that Be in Bend were traumatized by what happened in the mid-80's. Most of the promotional machinery that has so metastasized since then was created at a time when it was needed.

But once we opened that Pandora's Box, we couldn't get it closed again.