[fintstone]

Originally Posted by jyl

As I understand it, Asheville was largely a tourist, retirement, and college town, and pretty small at 100K pop. Before Helene, the town was growing fast, unemployment low (3-4%), on many “best places” lists - so seems hard to (rationally) claim local govt was running it into the ground.

What’s the future hold? Having the colleges there is very helpful, but the tourism/retirement industry . . . Not sure when that comes back.

As for roads and bridges, considering Helene was all of three months ago, I’d think are still in the cleanup/debris clearance phase. There is a ton of Fed infrastructure funding available but it takes years not weeks or months.

If you have lived there (unless wealthy), it is hard to claim that it has not been run into the ground. Crime in the city is quite high (largely due to homelessness (which the city entertains gleefully) and the city's reimagining police work and defunding the police. There is very little industry/work/middle class. Yes...it is a nice place to pass through as a tourist (it is very pretty), but it is almost impossible to make a decent living. Yes...if you have money (earned elsewhere), it is a good place to move to/retire as you can outbid the poor locals for housing and then they can wait on you in restaurants for minimum wage. It is often ranked as a nice place to visit but not to live.

The colleges are liberal arts...no medicine, engineering, law. Little to help locals improve their lot (maybe teach). The only jobs for liberal arts majors there are service industry (fast food and hotels) with low wages. When any good jobs come to the area, the companies hire (for any their decently paid jobs) from elsewhere. These folks also come in and bid up the prices on housing. It is hard to attract tech/industry when there are no engineering schools. A "tourism/retirement industry" is not one where most folks (adults) can make a living. The only ones that are making bank on fast food and hotels are the folks that own them that live elsewhere. It is why there are so many working poor there now.

Tell someone that cannot get to their home that it is reasonable to have to wait for years to build a path for them.