From the Get It! Guide: No one could have imagined that Blue Ridge Food Ventures would become one of the best-known facilities of its type in the country or remain the largest in the Southeast to this day. Since its official opening in 2005, Blue Ridge Food Ventures has helped launch more than 250 small businesses.
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Just Economics changes the definition of success
From the Get It! Guide: How do we define a successful business? According to Just Economics, it’s about more than dollars and cents.
Elaine Ingham’s manifesto: Let your garden’s wisdom guide your gardening and your life
“We need to educate people to understand that plants can, indeed, take care of themselves without people getting in the way,” asserts Elaine Ingham, an iconic figure in organic farming and a world-renowned soil microbiologist who is returning to Western North Carolina for two upcoming engagements later this week.
Asheville Grown Business Alliance: Working for now and 50 years down the road
From the Get It! Guide: The Asheville Grown Business Alliance takes 2015 by storm with a focus on diversifying, learning and courageously leveraging our community’s assets to create radical resilience and prosperity for everyone.
Growing Appalachia with ASAP
From the Get It! Guide: Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project and their Appalachian Grown certification program work to strengthen community connections through local food.
Karsten Delap shares tale of ice climbing on Looking Glass Falls
“This climb pushed the line on the margins of safety that I usually keep,” writes Delap.
Commentary: Highest and best use? Or absolutely the worst use?
Editor’s note: The issues of density, zoning, Smart Growth and quality of life in the city of Asheville continue to generate interest and concern among Mountain Xpress readers. Recent letters to the editor on the topics have generated multiple comments and new letters, along with a lively thread on the Facebook group Asheville Politics, which […]
Local EDC responds to report, criticism of JDIG incentives program
The following response is from Ben Teague, executive director of the Economic Development Coalition for Asheville-Buncombe County, who has completed more than $1 billion in economic development projects in Western North Carolina over the past six years, and Andrew Tate, President & CEO of the Henderson County Partnership for Economic Development. They’re responding to the NC Justice […]
Theater review: A Chorus Line
The musical A Chorus Line ran on Broadway from 1975 to 1990 and won practically every award that existed for theater during its run. Asheville Community Theatre’s production is presented by Aloft, and runs through Sunday, March 1. It’s directed by Chanda Calentine with musical direction by Gary Mitchell and choreography by Tina Pisano-Foor. Mother-daughter […]
NC Policy Watch: Tough rules, engaged public needed to clean up coal ash
OPINION by Sarah Kellogg: This week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will finally release the first-ever rule regulating the storage and disposal of coal ash, a toxic byproduct of burning coal. For years, communities and environmental groups across the country have pushed the EPA to finalize the regulations, and now, due to a court ordered mandate, the […]
WNCA, ECO, J-MCA to become ‘MountainTrue’
PRESS RELEASE Merging environmental organizations announce new name, logo ASHEVILLE—The boards and members of WNCA, ECO and the Jackson-Macon Conservation Alliance on Thursday night enthusiastically approved the new bylaws, board of directors, and new name and logo for their merging nonprofits. Effective at 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 1, 2015, these three environmental organizations will legally […]
Conscious Party: Celebrating compassion
WHAT: “Around the World with 80 Strays,” 11th Annual Taste of Compassion Gala WHEN: Saturday, Nov. 15, 6-9:30 p.m. WHERE: Crowne Plaza Resort Expo Center, 1 Resort Drive WHY: For over 30 years, the Asheville Humane Society has saved homeless Buncombe County animals, and once a year the organization gives the public the chance to […]
New website helps voters find local representatives’ record on fracking
PRESS RELEASE New website helps voters find local representatives’ voting record on fracking, make informed choice at the polls Asheville, N.C. — With Election Day weeks away and many voters still gathering information, a new, locally created website helps North Carolina voters easily identify where state and local legislators stand on fracking. FindYourFracker.org allows voters to search for local […]
Cyclists catch the fall air at Red Bull dirt-jumping event
Photographer Kate Durham sent Xpress photos and results from the Oct. 11 Red Bull Dreamline dirt-jumping event, including this shot.
Reflections of an Asheville counter-culture explorer
I moved from metro D.C. to Buncombe County in 1976 as a “back-to-the-land flower child,” aspiring to off-the-grid homesteading along with my neighbors in Sandy Mush and Spring Creek. At first, my partner and I lived with the Gallimores at the eco-pioneering Long Branch Land Trust. But due to economic necessities, not to mention impending […]
Acoustic Asheville: Dangermuffin
By Jesse Hamm Folly Beach, S.C. is not only the official beach destination of most of Asheville, but the home of Americana roots-rockers Dangermuffin. According to the trio’s bio, their sound “encompasses ska, calypso, and even Southern rock, often within the same song.” And Relix wrote, “Just like many a funny named band before them […]
The making of Asheville’s Woolworth Walk
A 76-year-old structure is bound to have stories to tell.
Saving the French Broad River: Naysayers, start paddling
For most people, their sense of “history” begins when they arrive somewhere. So, here is my history of the French Broad River and what has evolved along it since 1986, when I started working for RiverLink When I arrived in Asheville, I didn’t even know there was a river. The downtown was dead and scary, […]
From scratch: Mountain BizWorks’ humble beginnings
Mountain Microenterprise Fund began in 1989 as a small demonstration project to a shortage of financing for small businesses, particularly those owned by women and minorities. MMF started out as part of Warren Wilson College’s Black Swan Center, which some may remember for its “Green Pages” directory of small businesses in Swannanoa/Black Mountain (the area’s […]
Mountain Xpress: Persistently progressing progressivism
I was scrounging for a master’s in history from Western Carolina and buying beer at Cullowhee’s Speedwell General Store when there it was on the checkout counter: Green Line … a newspaper that, a few years later, became Mountain Xpress. Finally, here was a paper based on the environmental principles of the Green Party! It […]
There was never a dull moment
I moved to Asheville — well, technically, Black Mountain — in the winter of ’83. It was pretty rough. The night I moved into my little no-insulation cottage, temps plunged to minus 50 with the wind chill. The pipes froze, the toilet cracked, and I tried in vain to stuff newspaper in places where the […]