Quote:
Originally Posted by urbanlife
I always wonder which city in Oregon is going to take off and be more of a second city option outside of the Portland Metro.
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I would think it would be Bend, but I think the inaccessibility of Bend is holding it back way too much. There's no freeway leading to the city, the airport is pretty small, roads get iced over during the winter. So I don't think it's practical for Bend to become a big city off that alone.
Salem... Ehhh, I just don't see people actually wanting to move there unless they turn their image around. It's just a boring and (mostly but not all) run down city.
Eugene, I think is the most likely. Big university, already is decently sized at 375k similarly to Salem. But doesn't have the negative boring and run down stigma that Salem has. It's a little bit more of a fun town, and already has at least a start to a down town. As well as one of the best transportations systems I've ever seen for a metro smaller than 800k. It's got all of the pieces in place, I'm not really sure what Eugene needs to do to get the wild growth Bend has experienced over the last 30 years.
Medford probably has the best geographical location to see rapid growth. Warmest climate in Oregon, a few strong industries (Healthcare, retirement, wine, pear production, etc.) Closest city to California and therefore sees a lot of growth coming from California transplants. And the city seems to be bought in on growth. It just kind of has a similar stigma as Salem has, but I don't think it's as deserving of the stigma. Sure it's not the most fun city around, but it's decent and there's very nice parts of Medford that I think some people don't see when just visiting some of the central shopping and eating areas. But Medford's got to commit to bringing life downtown as well as bring more college students into the city to attract a younger crowd, as the old retirement stigma of Medford needs to be shed as well. Downtown needs more apartments, more tax breaks for small businesses, restaurants, and bars. Encourage SOU expansion in Medford, as well as try to pull an expansion campus from OSU, UofO, PSU, etc. like Bend and Salem have. Maybe a Nursing program expansion campus or something. As it would tie in really well with the area and Portland is really the main city for nursing in the state right now.
Downtown's gotta be cleaned up, bear creek needs to become an asset rather than a blight on the city. A strong cleanup effort, with incentives to create developments that utilize the creek are strongly recommended.
I think the water park / aquatics center is a good first step for the city right now. It brings in a bit more day trip tourists from around the southern part of the state. But more needs to be done, I think the casino getting approved would be big for the city. The apartments going up will be great, if Lithia continues their expansion of their HQ that'll be great. They just need to keep the momentum going.