Can you tell me about Brookings and Gold Beach?

[NW4me]

Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell

It must be really old if the over-70 crowd was born during the Great Depression. The Greatest Generation that had to deal with the depression and WWII is mostly gone. If a kid was 18 in 1945 he would be 90 now. The Silents are in their 80s, and the boomers are either 70 or getting close.

The two industries that supported the coast, fishing and logging, are just a shadow of their former vitality. Tourism picks up some of the slack, but the economy of the Oregon Coast has been in a continuous recession for 35 years, as the economy steadily shrinks. Social Security and pensions provide some cash flow, but nobody with a 401k moves to Oregon because they will lose 9% of it to state income tax. Of course, if all their money is in a Roth, they are golden, but Roths haven't been available that long.

The days when someone could fish for 40 years and then sell a paid-off boat for half a million bucks are long gone. There are still union pensions at the mills, but for 400 workers instead of 4,000. There are still some family wage jobs, but not many.

Maybe Brenda-by-the-sea took a bit of creative license... the generation that was raised by the Great Depression generation (early boomers) no doubt got to hear a lot about how tough life was "when I was your age." and now have that in the back of their minds...

[zimmyzees]

If you like cold, remote, isolated and backwards, you'll like the So. Oregon coast.

[jjpop]

As opposed to, say, the NorCal coast?

[AleeGee]

. Have you seen Brookings? I haven't been since 1994, but back then it was all million dollar homes, starting price, going up into the tens of millions. If you can live in Brookings, by all means, do so.