In the Pacific Northwest, they say, people have two incomes: The one they earn from their regular job, and the other that's measured - every time they walk out the door - in soul-refreshing views of mountain ranges, rugged coast, and high desert. Seattle, Portland, and other cities here have been nominated "most livable" so many times that former Oregon Governor Tom McCall once quipped, "You're welcome to visit, but for heaven's sake please don't come here to live."

Here in Bend, Ore., the population has doubled over the past decade to 57,000, as California émigrés and others arrive with their skills (or their retirement investments), building new homes, turning old mills into upscale shops and restaurants, and pumping their candy-colored bikes toward the spectacularly rugged 10,000-foot peaks of the Three Sisters Wilderness in the Cascade Mountains.

But the region Ernest Callenbach had in mind when he wrote "Ecotopia" 30 years ago seems to have fallen on hard times: Dot-com collapse in the land that Bill Gates built. The move of Boeing's headquarters from Seattle to Chicago. The highest unemployment rate in the country. Schools closing weeks early for lack of funds. Even the iconic salmon are dying out.

What's happening here?

The short answer is that the national economy - combined with business and tax quirks in Oregon and Washington State - has hammered an area known until recently as uniquely booming and beautiful. History's longer view of the land and its people helps explain the region's particular role in the American West's boom-and-bust cycles.

The Pacific Northwest, in fact, covers an area the size of Western Europe. The region encompasses rivers and streams that flow into the Columbia River, which - in addition to Oregon and Washington State - includes Idaho, western Montana, and some of British Columbia.

Two hundred years ago, the "Corps of Discovery," captained by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, recorded the natural wonders of a territory that had plentifully sustained its original inhabitants for thousands of years.

Today much of the area is still an awesome sight. However the impact of development is very evident. Just last week, Christopher Swain finished swimming the full 1,243-mile length of the Columbia, from its headwaters in the Canadian Rockies to the Pacific Ocean. His goal - and self-acknowledged obsession - was to publicize the impact of dams, pollution, logging, mining, and nuclear waste on the river. These human impacts have reduced wild salmon runs to a small fraction of their original numbers.

"I have come to realize that every challenge facing the river can be reduced to human terms," Mr. Swain said. "Really what the river has become is a reflection of who we are and the choices we've made here in the Northwest."

The river is symbolic of the way the region is doing more broadly. Oregon has the highest unemployment rate in the country (8.2 percent), followed by Washington (tied with Alaska at 7.3 percent). The list of Seattle-area companies cutting jobs reads like a who's who of prominent businesses: Boeing, Microsoft, Nordstrom, Alaska Airlines, Weyerhaeuser, AT&T Wireless.

Here in Oregon, state officials last week extended emergency unemployment benefits from 13 to 20 weeks. Lawmakers and the new governor, Ted Kulongoski (D), continue to struggle over a budget to cover expenses for the next two years. So far, the state is running a $2.5 billion deficit.

This has affected government-funded healthcare and other social services, courts and prisons - there's a four-month backlog of drug and property cases - and especially local schools, which get much of their funding from the state. State college and university students face higher tuition rates. Education budget cuts have caused business leaders considering moving here to have second thoughts.

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