Letter: Will marketing make us ‘Myrtle Beach of the Mountains’?

Graphic by Lori Deaton

Your headline was there on the page like business as usual — not surrounded by giant, bold, eye-roll emoji, not displayed in 72-point disaster caps. I couldn’t believe it. “BCTDA Plans $15M in Marketing for 2021-22” [June 2, Xpress]. What world are they living in? Isn’t this like telling a family of eight living in a two-room house that you’re persuading a couple of baseball teams to move in with them?

At 2 p.m. Tuesday, it took 40 minutes to navigate downtown traffic. Today, I spent 30 minutes trying to go four blocks on Haywood Road. I couldn’t find a simple breakfast anywhere without a long line of customers waiting. Montford and downtown were mobbed. If there’s budget waiting to be spent, give it to public services or underserved families, and let the marketing take care of itself. Or embrace a new tag line — Myrtle Beach of the Mountains.

— Bebe Kern
Emma

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13 thoughts on “Letter: Will marketing make us ‘Myrtle Beach of the Mountains’?

  1. NFB

    “If there’s budget waiting to be spent, give it to public services or underserved families, and let the marketing take care of itself.”

    The TDA is required by law to spend that money on marketing and neither the city or county can get one dime of it for public services.

  2. kw

    Laws can be changed. Otherwise, not one member of city council would be allowed to vote, much less be in office.
    3 of them might be the property of somebody else.
    Laws can and often should be changed.

    • NFB

      Laws can be changed, but city council can’t change this one. This law is up to the state legislature which is full of members who have nothing but contempt for cities in general, and Asheville in particular.

  3. faceit

    They should tear all the houses down in surrounding areas and build apartment buildings with retail spaces. This would end the stupid competition for home ownership and needless deforestation, and silence the suburban car-complainers. After razing your moldy, utility sucking houses, the whole area would use less electricity. Youd have even more places to eat breakfast. Face it, if you really wanted quaint mountain town youd move to Idaho.

  4. Taxpayer

    Ooops. Too late. I was thinking about this as I watched the Pubcycle full of drunk tourists the other day right after seeing the drunk people tubing in the nasty river. Gross in every direction.

  5. independa

    If you want to know what destroyed Asheville you need look no further that the “activists” destroying downtown, the politicians supporting them, and the political hypocrisy and corruption running rampant through our city.

  6. reuben W dejernette

    Hey Taxpayer…not everyone riding the Pub Cycle is a tourist !! We are residents and share the ride with tourists, sure…but so what !!! Regarding the River…come help us clean it up !! There are several volunteer groups that would welcome your help. You get the opportunity to meet some great neighbors and residents of our City…so get off your damm couch and/or high class SUV and participate !! Now regarding tourists…I wish that the volume was reduced by two thirds !! The laws are such that the revenue stream flows disproportionally to our State coffers…why can’t we just stop sending it !!! I do recall an issue of the colonies back in the 1700’s regarding taxation leading to a revolt and an end to sending taxes elsewhere !!!

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