Bend, Ore as a haven for the Times' affluent readers

I skimmed this odd solipsistic piece in Slate last week, and in fact forwarded the link to my friend Joel:

Are Journalists Underpaid? - Pity the sad, broke New York Times reporter.
By Daniel Gross

The piece is about journalists (and other members of the "creative class") "suffering" from, Gross writes, "what David Brooks (in his excellent Bobos in Paradise phase) identified as status-income disequilibrium."

(Brooks was insightful back in those days. As I wrote to Joel, I regret I read half of "Bobos" and then set it down for some reason--it really is a good book. E.g., I set it down just after getting through a section about Jane Jacobs and her Amazon.com: The Death and Life of Great American Cities--another book that's been on the to-read list for a while.)

Gross went on to mention something I'd been noticing too--the Times has been going heavy into "reporting" on the lifestyles of those whose status and incomes are closer to an equilibrium--at high levels:

...much of the expanded coverage of both the Times (Thursday Styles, House & Home, Real Estate) and the Journal (the Friday weekend section, the Saturday edition) is dedicated to the sort of high-end consumption that reporters can't really afford.

Those sections mentioned above, plus Escapes, that pile up at the end of the week...as usual, the question is, who is it that can afford to live like this? The liberal elite, I suppose the populist right-wingers would say.

At times, this coverage tends towards self-parody. Last Friday's Escapes had a piece headlined "The Third Home Comes Within Reach"! The three featured couples for whom that 3rd home has come within reach: an elderly lesbian couple, a younger gay couple, and a token hetero couple (but interracial).

All this is prelude to another piece in that Escapes section. This installment of "Havens": Bend, Oregon: Where Timber Was King, the Golf Club Replaces the Ax.

Thought that one might be of interest. Plenty of real estate quotes sprinkled throughout, plus Pros ("Growth has brought big-name music - Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, Bob Dylan - to town, and restaurants appeal to sophisticated palates.") and Cons ("Bend is 94 percent white. The joke among locals is that diversity means Subarus of different colors.")