COMMENT BY
COMMENT ABOUT PLACE
Vancouver, WA
COMMENT
Going down hill in a hurry
I was born here... A long time ago when there was a little hospital on a hill and many of the roads aside from the two main arteries were still unpaved. The area is beautiful to the south and west (Towering pines, rivers, lakes and mountains). The weather is sunny and warm in the Summer. It is cold and often snowy and foggy in the Winter. Autumn and Spring each last less than a month, but some will still try to sell you on a 4 season climate. To the east you see nothing but dirt, brush, tumbleweeds and juniper trees. It once was a nice, quiet, social, friendly community. In the last 2+ decades the growth has been astronomic. With that, the cost of living has become nearly unaffordable. There's little available for rent (Under 1% availability) for lower incomes. What is available is way overpriced. Houses for sale are also way overpriced. There's no industry as the local hospital is the largest employer leaving low income jobs in the service (such as tourism or manual labor) industries. Along with what appear to be younger groups of mostly jobless (Trust fund?) hippies or hipsters that seem to do nothing but float the river, loiter at the park, hang out at micro breweries or ski and snowboard every day. Or the other extreme of wealthy retirees or people that have sold their even more overpriced SoCal homes to flood this area. With that has come a huge shift in local socioeconomic and political climate that happens in an area as it passes 100,000 people. Higher crime, homelessness, unfriendliness, social separation, lower education standings, shifts in the city leadership representing larger towns and SoCal mentality and beliefs (The polar opposite of what this great town once was, and all you need to do is read the comments section of the local TV stations Facebook page for proof). I will be happy to be soon retiring to a small town that is what Bend once was (Not disclosing where as I don't want the next wave to follow me)... But, if what I've laid out is your vision of paradise, by all means look me up and I'll sell you my house for quadruple what I paid ;)