Bend’s identity and unique urban form stem from the city’s regional context, beautiful natural setting, and growth over approximately 100 years. Bend is the largest urban area in Oregon east of the Cascade Mountains. The city is uniquely situated between the Cascade Mountain Range and Deschutes National Forest to the west, and high desert plains to the east. Bend’s varied topography and abundant natural features are major influences in its existing urban form and identity as a city. In many ways, the city’s rapid growth is a direct result of its natural and scenic resources and proximity to the outdoors. The city’s physical and visual access to Mt. Bachelor, the Three Sisters, the buttes within the city (such as Awbrey Butte and Pilot Butte), Deschutes River, and Tumalo Creek provide defining contextual elements of the city’s urban environment and community identity.

Bend’s location in the high desert also means that the community is susceptible to wildfires. While wildfire risk and hazard have had only a modest impact on the city’s urban form historically, as the city expands further into the Wildland-Urban Interface, strategies to minimize and mitigate wildfire hazard will become increasingly important (see Chapter 10 for more about wildfire risk and hazard).

In the built environment, key transportation facilities such as Highway 97 and Highway 20 as well as freight rail lines connect Bend with other major regional destinations but also create barriers to pedestrian and habitat connectivity, and shape an auto-oriented urban form along the adjacent land. Bend’s trail system, on the other hand, is essential to creating connected neighborhoods because it provides recreation opportunities and active transportation options, and contributes to the economic vitality of the community. Its parks provide places to play, connect, and socialize; access to nature; and natural system functions.

The city’s historic development patterns, including the historic downtown and adjacent neighborhoods, which were developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, create a vibrant core with a gridded street system and short block lengths that provide a pedestrian-oriented setting as well as iconic public spaces such as Drake Park. Later development through the mid- to late-20th century produced quiet, generally low-density suburban neighborhoods with winding streets, and busy commercial corridors along major roads. As the lumber and farming industries waned in importance and tourism and recreation grew, the nature of employment areas shifted, with the beginnings of redevelopment within the city’s urban core, such as the Old Mill District.

Today, Bend is a city in transition. In the first two decades since 2000, Bend is increasingly becoming less of a town and more of a small city, as evidenced by:

Bend’s growth management strategies are intended to help make the transition described above from small town to city and contribute to maintaining Bend’s livability and desirability as the city grows and evolves.