Year in Review: Residents and local leaders reflect on Asheville’s growth and tourism

With growth comes worsening traffic, rising housing costs and long lines of tourists waiting at locally beloved bars and restaurants. But it’s not all bad, as 2021’s Year In Review participants note in their reflections on Asheville’s development and tourism sector. These residents and local leaders shared their growth gripes and hopes as they look forward to the coming year.

In Photos: Asheville residents rally for People’s Climate March

Asheville residents turned out in scores to show solidarity with the National People’s Climate March on Saturday, April 29. The procession marched through downtown, waving banners and signs, and chanting slogans urging government leaders to recognize climate change data. The marchers, which ranged in age from small children to older residents (and a couple dogs), […]

In photos: Open Streets Asheville Festival

The inaugural Open Streets Asheville brought residents and visitors into the streets to enjoy downtown in a new way. With Battery Park Avenue, Wall Street and portions of Haywood Street, Patton Avenue and Church Street closed to automotive traffic, folks did art projects, movement-based activities, listened to buskers and relaxed with yoga and massage.

Council members defer busking regulation­s at Public Safety Committee meeting

Asheville city staffers, downtown stakeholders and local buskers turned out in force for the city’s monthly Public Safety Committee meeting Wednesday afternoon to discuss a city proposal for a pilot program regulating downtown public space. The meeting, which was preceded by a community forum with downtown stakeholders, came amid tensions over pilot program, which would add regulations to several […]

Series continues: NC Collection hosts Asheville in the ’80s discussion

Editor’s note: The next session, “Social Activism and Social Agencies in the 1980s,” takes place Wednesday, June 29, from 6-7:30 p.m.  In the 1980s, Asheville was a smaller community, and that made everything — including social change — seem possible. Dedicated individuals worked together to tackle social problems such as the AIDS epidemic, threats to […]

Balancing local tourism’s costs and benefits

With an annual economic impact of $2.6 billion, tourism is a critical industry in Western North Carolina. But politicians and local residents are increasingly asking whether the tourism industry is paying a fair share of the cost of providing everything from sidewalks to roads to public safety to tourists. Now, City Councilman Gordon Smith is pushing for a new study to consider the local tourism industry’s impact and sustainability.

Weathering the winter months: Addissae Ethiopian restaurant hopes for community support

Asheville’s first and only Ethiopian restaurant, Addissae, has fallen on hard times nearly a year after opening. The restaurant’s owners, Vicki Schomer and Neeraj Kebede, recently launched a GoFundMe campaign to elicit community support and help pay for the basic costs of rent, utilities, insurance and fees. “Recently we have depleted our resources and exhausted our […]

Bringin’ it all back home: Asheville Grown ramps up for 2016 Go Local campaign

As new hotels and construction sites pop up across across the city seemingly every week and nationally-branded chains vie for retail space downtown, the local small business alliance known as Asheville Grown is reminding the Asheville community of the importance of keeping small, locally-owned businesses at the center of the city’s economic development plans.

"Yellow Alert!" - cartoon by Brent Brown

Yellow Alert

It would not be a case of yellow journalism to investigate the suspicions that something smells in dark recesses of downtown Asheville’s parking garage stairwells. City leaders should make addressing this a number one priority. It’s one thing to advertise downtown as a drinking destination, but having facilities available to return that rented beer makes the difference […]