I am writing this letter in response to two recent articles in the Mountain Xpress and lots of letters to the editor. The issues are growth, preservation and zoning.
I grew up in Austin, Texas. Austin has zoning. In the ‘80s, it was a city of about 100,000 with lots of live music, an active art community and a mixture of residents. There were college students, blue-collar workers, government employees and retirees. Does this sound familiar? The city council decided to promote “clean industry” so that the residents could have good “upwardly mobile” jobs but not pollute the local natural beauty. Well, guess what? Austin now has sprawl. I go back to visit and see the hills are covered not with trees but subdivisions and strip malls. There are lots of good jobs in Austin. Lots of upwardly mobile people move there. They like subdivisions to live in and big-box stores to shop in. With zoning, the commercial and industrial areas are separate from the homes.
I moved in the ‘90s to go to medical school near Houston. In the ‘70s, segregation was forced on the school district of Houston. Houston is a city with no zoning. What happened was called “white flight.” People still worked in Houston, they just moved to the surrounding small towns. So—sprawling suburbs. I lived 15 miles from downtown Houston. It was solid city. I changed counties and drove through four different towns to get home. I have a friend who lived in the historic Montford [Texas] district. Within a four-block circumference from her home was a used-car dealership, a tortilla factory, a daycare, a 24-hour quickie mart, a bed and breakfast, a bar and a McMansion. Sometimes people buy two or three older homes, demolish them and build huge houses.
So the moral is: Zoning is a tool—not a enemy. It can be good or bad. People have racist homeowner patterns despite the lack of zoning. The enemy is uncontrolled growth. Growth is not inevitable. Nor is all growth bad. The people of Asheville, Woodfin, Weaverville and Buncombe County need to come up with a comprehensive plan. Preserve the mountains or get ready for more sprawl.
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