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Slump Dashes Oregon Dreams of Californians
Susan and Mike Telford had a plan back in the boom years in California. They would sell their house outside Fresno at a solid profit and take their equity to this sunny mountain city to build a better life, a fresh-air future in Oregon.
“We wanted to lose the commute, to lose the smog,” Mrs. Telford said. “We wanted to lose California.”
They moved here in 2006, when Bend was one of the fastest-growing places in the West and money and migration from California fueled that growth. Now the Bend area’s unemployment rate, at almost 16 percent, is one of the highest of any metropolitan area in the nation. “For sale” signs dot desert-toned, unfinished subdivisions. Luxury furniture stores downtown are going out of business. San Francisco chefs have fled.
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/us/18oregon.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&ref=todayspaper
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