Bend, Oregon, United States

🇺🇸 Bend is a city in and the county seat of Deschutes County, Oregon, United States. It is the principal city of the Bend Metropolitan Statistical Area. Bend is Central Oregon's largest city and, despite its modest size, is the de facto metropolis of the region, owing to the low population density of that area. It is the fifth largest metropolitan area in Oregon.

Bend is located on the eastern edge of the Cascade Range along the Deschutes River. There the Ponderosa pine forest transitions into the high desert, characterised by arid land, junipers, sagebrush, and bitterbrush. Originally a crossing point on the river, settlement began in the early 1900s. Bend was incorporated as a city in 1905. Economically, it started as a logging town but is now identified as a gateway for many outdoor sports, including mountain biking, fishing, hiking, camping, rock climbing, white-water rafting, skiing, paragliding, and golf.

Economy Tourism is one of Bend's largest sectors. The Mount Bachelor ski resort brings in tourists from all over Oregon, Washington, and California. The nearby Cascade Lakes are also a large draw for tourists. Recreational activities include downhill and cross country skiing, hiking, biking, rafting, golfing, camping, fishing, picnicking, rock climbing, and general sightseeing. Transient room tax revenues through the first quarter of fiscal year 2015 equalled $2,221,610. The transient room tax is used in partnership with Visit Bend and the Bend Economic Development Advisory Board to convert visitors to Bend into residents and business owners. In 2011, Visit Bend reported that families are the largest demographic that visit Bend (35%), while couples with no children make up the second largest portion (24%) of visitors to the city. During the same year, tourism generated $570 million and employed 16% of the city's workforce.

According to a 2019 economic impact data from Travel Oregon, “the local tourism industry employs 10,000 people and brings in more than $1 billion into the regional economy” According to bendoregon.gov, room taxes attributed to the tourism in the town of Bend is divided up to be given back to the community. Bend, Oregon depends on $7 million dollars in the room tax income that essentially funds services for Streets, Fire, and Police. $3 million dollars are specifically contributed to Tourism Promotion. As of recent, specifically April of this year, the Bend City Council has agreed to spend an undisclosed portion of the $3 million dollars to maintain some of the trails in the city. 
Bend is home to the Deschutes Brewery, the eighth-largest craft brewery in the nation and the largest of over a dozen microbreweries in the city. Each year the city hosts many events celebrating its brewing culture, including the Bend Oktoberfest, the Little Woody Barrel Aged Brew and Whiskey Fest, Bend Brewfest, and Central Oregon Beer Week. Beer aficionados can also visit many of the breweries along the Bend Ale Trail. As of 2018, there were 23 breweries in Bend and 4 hard cider companies. Since 2017, Bend's Worthy Brewing has hosted an observatory with a 16-inch reflecting Ritchey–Chrétien telescope.

In 2005, Bend's economic profile comprised five industry categories: tourism (7,772 jobs); healthcare and social services (6,062 jobs); professional, scientific and technical services (1,893 jobs); wood products manufacturing (1,798 jobs); and recreation and transportation equipment (1,065 jobs). Much of Bend's rapid growth in recent years is also due to its attraction as a retirement destination. The rapid population growth has fostered organisations such as Central Oregon Landwatch and Oregon Solutions.

Bend has also become a commuter town for a number of tech workers in the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle metropolitan area despite the extreme commute, due to its appeal to the outdoors as well as its relatively cheap cost of living compared to the skyrocketing rent and housing prices of the Bay Area and Seattle.

Major companies As of 2014, the top 20 private regional (Deschutes, Jefferson, and Crook counties) employers were: 1 St. Charles Medical Center (4,482 employees region-wide) 2 Les Schwab Tire Centers (905 region-wide) 3 Sunriver Resort (900) 4 Mt. Bachelor (756) 5 Bright Wood Corporation (746 region-wide) 6 IBEX Global (700) 7 Wal-Mart (686 region-wide) 8 Bright Wood Corporation (646) 9 Bend Memorial Clinic (639) 10 McDonald's (620 region-wide) 11 Safeway Inc. (584 region-wide) 12 Fred Meyer (538 region-wide) 13 Jeld-Wen (480) 14 Northview Hotel Group (Eagle Crest Resort 450) 15 Consumer Cellular (402) 16 Opportunity Foundation (384) 17 Black Butte Ranch (360) 18 Deschutes Brewery (290) 19 Central Oregon Trucking (286) 20 BendBroadband (285)

Other Bend-based companies • 1859 magazine • Bend Radio Group • Bend Studio • Breedlove Guitars • Combined Communications • Edge Wireless • Epic Aircraft • Hydro Flask • Kollective Technology • Leverage Factory • Nosler, Inc. • Suterra • Western Communications

Construction and real estate According to the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis, in 2005 construction and real estate accounted for 17.3 percent of all jobs in the Bend metropolitan statistical area (MSA), which constitutes all of Deschutes County. This figure is about 70 percent more than the proportion of construction and real estate jobs in the Oregon and national economies. However, construction activity in Bend appears to be slowing; the number of building permit applications received by the Bend City Building Division fell from 826 in August 2006 to 533 in August 2007, a 35 percent decrease. A large influx of new residents drawn by Bend's lifestyle amenities, along with the low interest rates and easy lending that fostered a national housing boom in 2001–05, resulted in increased activity in Bend's construction and real estate sectors and caused the rate of home price appreciation in Bend to grow substantially during that period. Median home prices in the Bend MSA increased by over 80% in the 2001–05 period. In June 2006, Money magazine named the Bend MSA the fifth most overpriced real estate market in the United States. By September 2006, the Bend metro area ranked second in the list of most overpriced housing markets, and in June 2007 it was named the most overpriced housing market in America. The 2008−09 housing downturn had a strong effect on Bend's housing and economic situation. According to the Seattle Times, single-family home prices dropped more than 40 percent from a peak of $396,000 in May 2007 to $221,000 in March 2009. Additional signs of the housing downturn include an April 2009 Deschutes county unemployment rate of 12.6 percent and in a tri-county area of Deschutes, Crook and Jefferson counties a 66 percent rise in homelessness from 2006 to 2,237. In May 2010, the Federal Housing and Finance Agency released a report in which Bend had the largest price drop in the country, 23 percent, from first quarter of 2009 to the first quarter of 2010.

Arts and culture The city is becoming known for its burgeoning art scene, and is home to numerous visual and fine art galleries, as well as the independent BendFilm Festival, which launched in 2004. There are numerous public art displays, including the Roundabout Art Route tour of outdoor sculptures throughout the city.