Great interview here by the Austin Chronicle. The chronicle is talking with Joshua Long, author of Weird City: Sense of Place and Creative Resistance in Austin, Texas. Asheville, take a listen (and perhaps a lesson):
AC: You make the point that Austin’s definitely weird – the vignettes regarding toilet yard art, Nik the Goat, and Leslie Cochran testify to that – but also that Austin faces many of the same challenges as other cities around the country, namely addressing growth while maintaining a sense of place.
JL: Yeah, there is definitely something different about Austin, but that doesn’t mean that it is the only city dealing with growing pains and homogenization. This may explain why there are so many other “Keep ______ Weird” slogans out there. Boulder, Portland, Santa Cruz, Louisville, Asheville, and dozens of other cities are begging residents to keep it weird. In the past twenty years or so it seems that more and more cities have begun to look like replicas of the same SoCal strip mall. The occasional big box store or restaurant chain isn’t a bad thing, but when you have a cookie-cutter landscape of Pottery Barns, REIs, and Olive Gardens, cities stop looking like individual places and instead start looking like landscapes of American mass consumerism. Don’t get me wrong. I’m no anti-capitalist. But I am a bit worried that we are too often sacrificing the diversity of the American cultural landscape for the sake of cheap shiny convenience.
All of this, of course, goes beyond landscape homogenization. There are serious social costs associated with rapid growth and downtown revitalization. Many of my interviewees didn’t have time to worry about saving a dive bar or an iconic restaurant. They were far more concerned with the cost of their rent and their property taxes, and as you know, this hits some communities harder than others. There are also serious environmental costs associated with rapid growth that need to be taken into consideration, but I fear I am starting to sound preachy…
2 Comments
There is so much our little city can learn from Austin! It’s extremely important to hold on to that quirkiness that makes Asheville what it is.
There’s a lot of truth in what he’s saying. I’ve often thought that soon we won’t have to travel because every town will look the same. There won’t really be a reason to travel to another city’s Pottery Barn.
But, what I’m missing, is what can we realistically do about it?