5 stars to visit, 3 stars to live.
-
5/11/2017
Like many places, Asheville has many great things to offer, along with challenges when it comes to day-to-day living. After visiting here in 2014, and actually living here for 21 months, I believe I can offer a balanced and current perspective. I will break this up into 6 reasons why you should and 6 reasons why you should NOT move to Asheville:
Reasons to move to Asheville:
1. Four seasons provide "Goldie Locks" weather, compared to the cold winters of northeast and midswest and the wretched heat during summer in the southeast and southwest. Sperling's stats on climate are pretty accurate.
2. Despite some overdevelopment, there are plenty of outdoor amenities, especially for hiking, canoeing, camping, and leaf looking.
3. Breweries..#3 in the nation per capita...over 50 breweries in the WNC area.
4. Restaurants, particularly breakfast and if you are a fan of what they call "New American" cuisine.
5. Great place to live if you are a trust-fund baby, have ample retirement saved, or hold a successful business of your own.
6. Violent crime is low...
6 Reasons NOT to move:
1. ....Property crime is HIGH! Lock your car doors, even in good/upper class neighborhoods.
2. Wages to cost of living are almost unsustainable for people trying to move here, hoping to land a job somewhere.
3. Going with the theme of reason #2, the job market is almost laughably lousy. I was lucky to get hired by a global corporation with a decent wage and benefits, but my wife cannot find work to save her life, despite over 8 years of professional experience in banking management and other specialized banking fields. Do not move here unless you know exactly how much income you will be earining on a week-to-week basis.
4. Asheville has a diverse group of people, but in the subculture sense. It is a strange mash of Holy Rollers and Hippies. Hipsters and Hillbillies. If you are looking for international cuisine, worldly exposure, you will not find much of it in Asheville or WNC. It will be hard to fit in if you are not a senior citizen, hippie, hipster, redneck, artist, rich and successful business owner, a drug addict, a yoga granola type, a runner, or farmer. If you do fall into one of these categories, you will find your people. But if you are not a walking stereotype, you may find yourself out of place a little.
5. The infrastucture is horrid, which compounds the traffic of the population boom and herds of tourists. There was no plan for the boom the area has gotten and it will show, as many of the main roads here are one-lane only.
6. Though the scenery is still beautiful here, they are overdeloping the area at an insane pace. Sprawl is rampant. In 15-20 years, this may not be the beautiful mountain town it once was.
Sebastian | Asheville, NC