The wealth gap between rural and urban areas is the subject of a New York Times story today that focuses on the waning fortune of Oakridge, Oregon, a depressed logging town near Eugene.

As elsewhere in rural Cascadia, high-paying blue-collar jobs that supported families disappeared when the local mill closed:

Expressed in 2005 dollars, the average pay for a full-time worker in rural Oregon fell to $27,600 in 2005 from $34,200 in 1976. Over the same period, average pay in urban counties in Oregon climbed to $37,800, putting the rural-urban gap at $10,200 and rising, according to the Oregon Employment Department.

In Oregon the rural poverty rate was 13.8 percent in 2003, 2.4 points higher than in urban areas, according to statistics from the U.S.D.A. Rural poverty in Washington rose to 13.4 percent, 2.7 points more than in urban areas.