Asheville, NC: Overpriced Dump
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3/15/2019
Quite simply, Asheville is a dump. The little "city" is trashy and restaurants and hotels grossly overpriced for nothing more than common fair. The area looks and feels poor and dirty with many street people (drug addicts) all over the streets, no escaping them.
Housing, either homes or apartments, is ridiculously expensive and for no real reason. You can't find an apartment in the Asheville/hendersonville area for under $1,300 (1 bedroom). The houses are old (need $$ for repair/upkeep), on tiny lots, and again, overpriced.
The main issues in the Western NC area are 1) No solid employment except seasonal tourism and taking care of the elderly, 2) Exreme wealth and extreme poverty with no real middle class, 3) Major drug issues (Crystal Meth, illegal opioids, etc), 4) Poor education, and stereotypical slow and stupid thinking and moving that drives northerners insane. If the locals can mess something up, they do. Hence depending upon those not born/raised in the area but rather transplants from northern areas. Your doctors, HVAC, electrician, auto mechanic, etc will likely be a transplant. And those transplants are exactly who you should be looking for in all service areas.
The cost of food is more expensive than other areas including the urban/suburban Washington DC/NYC etc areas. Sales tax is 8.75%, hefty.
Northerners will have a far more extreme "culture shock" to this area than they would if they moved to England. The poverty in this area is mindblowing and not hidden in the mountains but sitting near very expensive homes, with usual evergreen buffer used to block the myriad trailers and shacks. Again, extremes of wealth and poverty side-by-side. This area allows 10 chained dogs on a property which means a home can be surrounded by many neglected, abused dogs. Experts nothing from the police or sheriff regarding abused animals. Or non-stop barking. This area is backwards when it comes to abused, neglected animals and even children.
The mountains are small mountains and not ugly flat. There is hiking and other outdoor activities and that's a plus (crowded but there). Weather used to be temperate but in the last 7 or so years it has become far more extreme: winters are bitter and summers very humid and hot. There goes one valid reason to move here.
This area, Asheville and Hendersonville, is not an area that should be first on your list for moving or even visiting. Little more than an overpriced dump with small mountains and nothing more.
Tamsin | Hendersonville, NC