"Region on the Mend?"

The Bulletin has another article about how our local economy is on the mend.  The article itself seems to be mostly about Oregon as a whole -- and I've always maintained that we can't really be lumped in with the rest of the state. 

In contrast, I just about wrote a blog yesterday entitled, "The Walking Wounded" with the theme being that the economy in Bend continues to limp along.  One restaurant in downtown seems in doubt (rumor stage) and the Blacksmith just sold.  Our vacancy rate and churn seems about the same now as it was a couple of years ago. 

That, combined with both Juniper Ridge and the bus system rearing their heads in coverage of the city council in the Bulletin.  Somehow there is this feeling that we can start planning for future growth again. 

But I still have the feeling that city officials and real estates experts are somehow expecting a return to the steady rise of the 99's and 00's, instead of reverting back to what the economy in Bend did through the '80's say, or the very small growth it incurred during the first 30 years I lived here.

Very small growth because we never established any real industries here but tourism and retirement.  Which more or less took the place of the timber industry in this town.

So now, the media and city officials  all seem to be expect the problems to resolve, for the money to appear to fund Juniper Ridge expansions and bus systems and anything else that we require.

All seems predicated on the assumption that we're "recovering" or "on the mend" that things in a couple of years will be different than they are now.

And, well, I don't have any evidence to prove otherwise.  But my feeling is, that while the economic body may have stopped taking shots, there are still lots of walking wounded in this town.  Businesses that aren't falling over dead, necessarily, but not exactly thriving either.

New money, as in new brew pubs, is not the same thing as established businesses doing particularly well.  I think "new money" is churning money, not necessarily producing money.

I don't think we'll collapse, because we do have that "new" money, which I think arrives because in many ways Bend is a pretty cool place that people want to live in.

So holding our own is pretty good, I think.

But my own inclination would be to put Juniper Ridge back on mothballs and not expect any changes for the bus system -- which means the city will have to go ahead and fund it though it can't afford it, or let it fail.

At any rate, start planning for the contingency that maybe we won't see lots of growth, but instead keep limping along.