Convince me that Bend, OR sucks [Update: It doesn't but moved elsewhere]

[lhamo]

@MaybeBabyMustache, one quick and dirty indicator I use to check how large the Asian population is in a given area is to do a search for Asian markets.  Places with a large Asian population will not only have lots of them, there will also be many that specialize in a particular subregion.  The greater Seattle area now has many different Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese (if you consider Uwajimaya's roots  -- they are really pan-asian at this point), Korean, and Indian markets, plus some smaller ones for things like Filipino and Cambodian/Lao/Thai, etc.   They are also spread around the region pretty liberally, unlike 30 years ago when you basically had to make a trip to the International District in Seattle to find them. 

Looks like Boise has a few, mostly general pan-Asian.  No H-Mart yet:

https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=Asian+Grocery+Stores&find_loc=Boise%2C+ID

Bend doesn't seem to have any.

You can do a similar search for other cuisines to check for other types of diversity.

Makes me miss my old neighborhood in NYC where we were a couple of blocks away from every type of regional subspecialty you could want....

[FINate]

Welcome to inversion season!

The inversion is beautiful from the top of the ski resort on a sunny day :)

[jrhampt]

Bend - this really is not its fault, but I found the landscape just felt wrong to me.  It was dry and desert like, but there were very strange forests.  It just didn’t feel like a landscape that could feel like home to me.

It’s called high desert and is indeed somewhat unique. I do like arriving into RDM and smelling all these Juniper trees first thing when you leave the aircraft and I miss not being able to travel there this year to visit close friends.

Yes, as an east-coaster near the shore, I'm used to much much higher humidity, even in the winter, and the vegetation is very different.  It's a rare day for us when it gets below 50% humidity here.  Inland it's a little dryer, but not Bend dry.

[GilesMM]

@MaybeBabyMustache, one quick and dirty indicator I use to check how large the Asian population is in a given area is to do a search for Asian markets.  Places with a large Asian population will not only have lots of them, there will also be many that specialize in a particular subregion.  The greater Seattle area now has many different Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese (if you consider Uwajimaya's roots  -- they are really pan-asian at this point), Korean, and Indian markets, plus some smaller ones for things like Filipino and Cambodian/Lao/Thai, etc.   They are also spread around the region pretty liberally, unlike 30 years ago when you basically had to make a trip to the International District in Seattle to find them. 

Looks like Boise has a few, mostly general pan-Asian.  No H-Mart yet:

https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=Asian+Grocery+Stores&find_loc=Boise%2C+ID

Bend doesn't seem to have any.

You can do a similar search for other cuisines to check for other types of diversity.

Makes me miss my old neighborhood in NYC where we were a couple of blocks away from every type of regional subspecialty you could want....

Bend is crushingly non-diverse.  The last census put it at 90% white, 9% latino and 1% everything else. Holy cow.

[Turtle]

Bootcamp in the 1990's - we had a couple recruits from rural Oregon who had come in on the buddy program straight out of high school.

One of them had literally never, ever seen anyone who wasn't white anywhere but on TV prior to leaving for boot camp. 

[jrhampt]

Wasn't Oregon basically founded by a bunch of white supremacists?  If I'm remembering correctly, the lack of diversity probably started there and has continued.

[mspym]

Wasn't Oregon basically founded by a bunch of white supremacists?  If I'm remembering correctly, the lack of diversity probably started there and has continued.

Yup, it was started as a sundown state and the lack of diversity was a deliberate decision. David Newiert documented this on his blog and then a couple of books http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/ but It hasn’t been updated in a number of years

[jiimmy]

When South Sister erupts, look out Bend!

It could happen next week, or 10,000 years from now. :-)