The woman sitting across from us on the Amtrak Cascades was from one of those Washington communities around Woodland, Castle Rock and Kelso. Her eyes lit up when my wife told her we were from Astoria. She and her husband loved their stay at the Cannery Pier Hotel. Their preferred Oregon Coast town had been Lincoln City. Astoria’s rebirth and the price of gasoline have changed that.

She said: “People say: ‘Astoria is down in the dumps. I don’t want to go there.’ Then I tell them Astoria has changed. They need to take another look.”

As much as I am used to Portlanders gushing over what has become of Astoria, I’ll admit this woman’s observations turned my head, because she had changed her vacation habit.

I observed a similar phenomenon at the Astoria Music Festival. A larger presence of Portlanders was evident in this year’s audience. This woman changed her vacation habit to Astoria and away from Lincoln City.Not only is Astoria a nice place to visit, but Portland does not offer a music experience similar to the music festival. There is no concert venue in Portland with the intimacy and the natural acoustics of the Liberty Theater.

And now we are approaching another event that’s going to change the perception of our place. The Concert for Big Red gives every indication of being a watershed event. Scheduled for the Clatsop County fairgrounds on Aug. 22, 23 and 24, this rock concert will benefit the repair of the Columbia River boat barn owned by Royal Nebeker. The array of rock musicians – including the vaunted Jefferson Airplane reunion – is eye catching.

For all of the buzz surrounding Astoria’s new look and new attitude, some of the old attitudes can still be heard. One of these is the inertia surrounding hours of operation that do not jibe with the kind of convenience that customers expect in 2008.

The concept of “under-playing a market” also applies. In the parlance of retailing, when a shop owner fails to offer products that meet the demand that’s present in his marketplace, he is under-playing that market.

The most obvious under-play used to be Astoria restaurants, which 20 years ago did not rise much above the lunch-counter variety. Now we have a spectrum of restaurant offerings that are worthy of a city much larger than ours.

But other sectors lag. And the consequence is what’s called leakage. That is, consumers who travel elsewhere for their goods, because they cannot find them locally.

Of course, leakage also works to Astoria’s favor. There is considerable leakage from the Long Beach Peninsula into Clatsop County. To understand the size of that leakage, we rely upon Claritas. Owned by Nielsen, Claritas updates census information and marries the updated census data with consumer spending data and retail sales data to provide a demographic profile within specific geographic locations. Claritas’ current numbers indicate $25 million in Pacific County spending that flowed into Clatsop County in 2007 for building materials and garden supplies, $13 million for clothing and accessories, $9 million for electronics and appliances.

Old images don’t die. They must be shattered. Astoria’s most outdated image is of a depressed economy that is dependent on fishing and timber. Claritas data indicates that a small share – 4.26 percent – of Clatsop County’s employment base is in fishing, forestry and farming. The sales and office sector is much larger. So are service and professional jobs. Saying this is not a slight at the waterfront or the woods. They are alive and well. But it’s safe to say that most Astorians and outsiders don’t realize the extent to which Astoria has turned the corner away from a natural resources-dependent economy.

The other surprise in Claritas numbers is the age of Astoria’s population. The median age is 39 and the average age is 40.

In The Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida tells us that the younger, creative demographic is vital to a city’s health. That is what’s propelling Astoria’s rebirth. And that younger demographic will be on display at the Concert for Big Red.

– S.A.F.