From the Chicago Tribune’s travel section:
Few places transcend their size and place on the map, but this town of 76,000 does it. It’s in the gray ponytails, the pierced, tattooed kids and the artists. It boasts a lyric opera, a rich collection of art deco architecture and this curiosity: when rock band Smashing Pumpkins came out of retirement in 2007, it warmed up with a nine-night residency in, of all places, Asheville.
The progressiveness occasionally moves into a downright touchy-feely hippie vibe, as evidenced by a memorable downtown bulletin board advertising the Divine Feminine Mystery School, the Appalachian School of Holistic Herbalism and a “Be an Askable Parent” seminar about “how to answer your child’s questions about sexuality.”
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The hip, progressive, artsy Asheville is mostly a myth. Try smug, arrogant, white trust-fund hippies. Mexicans who get paid 'under the table' while taking advantage of social services and welfare, while workers in any restaurant or store will tell you every Mexican shops with a stack of one hundred dollar bills.
As for the natives, they are filthy and rude. Be they tattooed & dreadlocked, or middle-aged, middle-class and with a well paying job — they are creepy. Retail workers constantly retrieve trash, and trashed clothing from fitting rooms, used disposable diapers dropped wherever they feel like dropping them, constantly chewing gum open-mouthed and popping huge bubbles in the faces of sales people, bank tellers, and anyone else. They leave chewing gum on the walls, fast food wrappers on the floors, and then bleed, urinate, wipe their asses and walk in shoes or barefoot on $300 – $500 dresses. Ask any retail employee in Asheville.
They think it's perfectly reasonable for men of any age to go into the girls' fitting rooms and take a seat for the show, or just hang outside the door looking like some pervert. Don't believe me? Try asking one to leave the fitting room. They, and their mothers(of any age), will argue loudly.
Teenagers breed like rodents.
I was born and raised here and have an great affection for this area and agree that Asheville is an extremely progressive southern town with diverse values but a town with very little physical ethnic diversity. this has really never changed in all my 28 years, except for the influx of hispanics. you cannot call any town diverse by pointing out the black and hispanic populations alone. we have a lack in world diversity all together.
The city of Asheville has fewer than 20% African Americans, but the entire Western NC region has a very small percentage of black residents, perhaps 7% at most That is a far cry from SC, GA and the rest of NC where African Americans often comprise more than half the population. I agree that blacks here in Asheville tend to be very segregated and that's not a good thing for the community. Our guests here also have often commented about how few people of color they see in Asheville proper. Its retirees, tourists, some hippies and lots and lots of obese white folks! Just my two cents worth.
Most hillbillies I know share something that most progressive hipsters will never have – – a sense of place. Like the hillbilly poet-farmer Wendell Berry famously said, 'If you don’t know where you are, you don’t know who you are'. Or from the reincarnated turkey vulture, "The best people, like the best wines, come from the hills." –Edward Abbey
The hateful venom spewed in this thread shows how non-diverse this town really is, as for progessive maybe in name only. But nothing about down town is inviting to "locals" because we are just considered hicks in their eyes. Look at the way most "locals" are portrayed in the other Mountain rag in this town.
And by local is not just living here im talking born here local.
Actually, Don, that's a common misconception. About 20% of Asheville's population is African American. Asheville isn't a white city, so much as it is a (voluntarily) segregated city. Aside the Asheville City Schools and a few places like Carrier Park, there aren't a lot of places where you'll see black and white folks together.
The lack of real ethnic diversity here in Asheville and WNC is always so shocking to me. Let's face it, the majority of folks in this city and region are white. I believe the percentage of African Americans here is really small, especially compared to nearby places in the South. I would wager there may be more Latinos here than people of color.
Having lived here for years, I've gotten mostly used to this lack of ethnic diversity. But when friends come here for the first time, they almost always comment that there are so few persons of color.
Helga, you should check out other cities of similar size elsewhere in the South before saying that. Asheville is light years different from others.
It needs to be pointed out that only once does the word "hillbilly" even appear in the story, and that's when a woman is quoted in the story describing herself. The headline (which is usually not written by the reporter writing the story anyway) is completely misleading.
Totally agree, Fred. The tone was smug and the reporting sloppy, summarizing Asheville history as: rednecks ruled, except for the Vanderbilts. Then Portlanders came to appreciate what locals didn't. Umm, Black Mountain College? Largest Jewish community in the South? I know it was a short piece, but it was pretty simplistic.
Thanks to all of you who feel free to call people rednecks and hillbillies. It's o.k. They are white and native to the area so there are no politicosocial protections for their value or pride. Don't feel that you have to hold back or edit your expressions. It's just fine to insult and demean them because you are obviously sophisticated, educated, courteous, intelligent and far superior to those you insult.
There is absolutely no doubt that the redneck and hillbilly element dominates all of Asheville, Buncombe Co and Western NC and will always continue to be the majority. No way ever will the hipsters and tourists dominate the scene here. Just go to the Tunnel Rd restaurants or any J&S cafeteria location and you will quickly see the people who comprise the real Asheville!
Asheville and the region continue to suffer from a lack of good employment and career opportunities. This has always been our Achilles heel and nothing has ever been accomplished to increase employment opportunities.
Helga….perhaps…..but more so out in the county and during Bele Chere. I think if you stay within the 240/I-40 boundaries (and don't cross the smoky park bridge), you can pretty much avoid the hillbilly….
What a load of nonsense. One yankee comes down here on vacation and finds a bunch of other yankees because they all gravitate towards the same tourist spots, and assumes we're "light" on southerners here and that must be why we're so progressive. Of course "hillbillies" and other "real" southerners would never be intelligent enough to live in a city with this much culture. This guy needs a different day job.
Extremely mixed bag of philosophies here in Asheville. If you cruise around downtown you'll feel the progressive/liberal/hippie vibe. If you cruise tunnel road and shop at walmart then maybe you'll get that redneck impression more often than not. We are in the mountains, there are a gazillion farms and country folk nearby. We are extremely diverse and that's what makes Asheville unique. I think the travel writer was spot on. This is a tourist destination, for the most part. NOT a big city either.
Helga: Hillbilly and redneck? 5 miles outside the city maybe.
Obviously they never really stopped in Asheville to check it out, otherwise they would have written about the overpopulation of transients. They would have noticed first hand how Asheville labels Transients as Homeless when in fact they are bums shipped here from other cities. Asheville needs to take care of the real homeless families and not these bums that roll in when the weather is nice or the menu changes at the soup kitchen.
Do you think the Chicago Tribune actually paid for Josh Noel to come to Asheville to write this tiny article? As their beer+travel writer, he appeared never to get out of Barley's Taproom for his research.
Typical stuff from a Sunday travel writer trying to fill space. After moving here from a much bigger city many years ago, I'd say there is far more hillbilly and redneck here in Asheville than progressive or hip.