I was in town yesterday to participate in a program of readings by members of the Great Smokies Writing Program. It was a pleasant, well-attended hour and a half or so of assorted poems, essays, novel excerpts and one very silly story. (That was me.)
Rain was falling when I left Malaprop's (Asheville's iconic independent bookstore, host of the Authors at Home reading series) and the parking garage afforded a fine view of a rainbow stretching over the cut on Beaucatcher Mountain.
I've been here long enough to remember Beaucatcher before the cut and Asheville when it was mainly boarded up stores. It's become a lively place now, full of natives, transplants, and tourists -- a pleasant, walkable little city . . . but it continues to grow, adding hotels and high rises at a frightening pace.
I don't live in Asheville so my opinion isn't particularly informed . . . but I could wish that the growth would slow down. I could wish that more affordable housing was being built rather than more high rise hotels blotting out the same lovely views that the tourists travel here to see.
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