Is Southern culture on the skids in Asheville?

This is ridiculous! Asheville is one the most Southern of cities in NC. Just take a drive to West Asheville, out Emma Rd. and you will find a mountain, redneck culture, stars and bars flags, jacked up cars and trailers everywhere. I'd venture to say there are more mobile homes here than in any other part of the state except far eastern NC.

What Asheville does not have is the high percentage of African Americans here that other cities in both NC and SC have, so that may make it seem a bit less Southern.

Without a doubt, Southern culture is alive and thriving in this little city. Just listed to all the folks who "appreciate ya"…..if that ain't Southern, I'll kiss my grits!

What are "southern" shops? Wal-Mart? What are "southern" restaurants and "southern" food? Ruby Tuesday? Dennys?

Is "southern" just a code word for something else?

Stop pining for a South that no longer exists most places. In some ways (lots of independently owned businesses; emphasis upon locally grown foods; an African-American mayor), Asheville is actually MORE like the South than the rest of the South.

This group only has 9 members as of this morning, anyway, so while I wish them the best of luck in their Quixotic pursuit, I'm not sure what they hope to accomplish with a Facebook page.

I think that might be some of the positive points about Asheville, that is ISN'T a small town Southern feeling. Travel 10 miles from downtown and you'll find all the Confederate flags you don't see downtown.

I don't really care about the Facebook group, but I do care about the conversation, particularly since there is the assumption that southern equals confederate flags and trailers. Of which southern culture are we speaking? What about the South's–particularly southern Appalachia’s–connection to faith, family, community, and small-scale agriculture? How about our independent sprit and wicked story-telling ability? And let’s not forget about our musical traditions…have you been to Shindig on the Green? Take a real look and you’ll see that our culture is much more than the worn out Deliverance stereotypes perpetuated by “Paddle Faster, I Hear Banjo Music” bumper stickers. Our culture is alive and well and we’ll out pot-luck you any day of the week.

Hogwash. Asheville has really never been a "southern" city (and we could dedicate an entire thread to debating what constitutes "southern" — Cuisine? Confederate-flag hats? Accent?)

And speaking of native status, I'm sure our neighbors on the Cherokee reservation might have a thing or two to say about Asheville's cultural roots.

But to address the question Jason has put forth: Asheville is, and always has been a city of interlopers, transplants, runaways, dreamers, vagabonds and carpetbaggers. And from the very beginning, many of us (including moi) have come here from northern climes.

I recommend reading "Asheville. A History" by Nan Chase. It's a fascinating book and it's impeccably researched and sourced (and a fun read). It's amazing how history repeats itself in this town.

Prior to the railroad reaching Asheville in 1880 we had a population of 2,600. The RR kicked of an economic and population boom that added 50,000 people in 50 years, 10,000+ came within the first decade. "Of the 15,000 residents in 1900, more than a third of them had come from north of the Mason-Dixon line."

Vanderbilt, Coxe, Pack, Carrier (ring any bells?) — Yankees.

I point this out because I get so tired of people playing the "native-born" card or the "I've lived here so many # of years" card in a constant game of one-up-manship. Truth is, this city has long been a collection of outsiders drawn here for many of the same reasons we continue to attract transplants.

And we should celebrate our unique heritage. We're mutts, not purebreds. Name another city in the south that had a vibrant Jewish and Greek population like Asheville had at the turn of the century. We had a degree of diversity that few could rival.

This town has always defied labels. Why start now?

Western NC has always been more Appalachian then southern, with more in common with West Virginia or even western Pennsylvania than Mississippi or Louisiana.

Using stereotypes to say the Southern Culture is alive in Asheville is ignorant! The reality is whatever culture Asheville has, it appears Southern Culture is not as vibrant! People used to describe the area as "hip little southern town", now it's just a hip town with lots to offer!

Asheville hasnt lost its roots, its lost its soul, Now its one of the most narrowminded towns in the south, being an individual means going against the status quo.

Being an individual isnt thinking alike and looking alike that status quo, down town looks like any urban downtown, its a scratch on a DVD its the same thing over and over.

Now attack me for voicing a different opinion.

So why are posters equating everything Southern with 'redneck culture' and trailer parks? kind of myopic, no?

Southern redneck can be a positive or a negative based on the prospective of the individual or group involved. Is Southern culture the same as Southern redneck culture; I think not. I would guess a large majority of the tourist visiting downtown Asheville or the Biltmore area do not want to see rednecks, smell cigarette smoke or know we have a large redneck community living outside of downtown area. A large majority of the people living downtown would feel the same way; more or less. If Southern culture is profitable businesses model businesses with this theme will flourish if not they will die. The same goes for Southern redneck; if a redneck has the capital to open a business based on some redneck theme downtown more power to them; I will not go but I respect their right to roll the dice. Would a true Southern culture restaurant flourish downtown the same as it would in the country where natives may or may not support it? Do the native rednecks go to locally own restaurants or eat at the chains restaurants; I hope they support the local guy.

I do not care either way how people choose to live just respect others choices and keep your mouth shut even if you disagree with the life style they live as long as what they are doing does not affecting your life. I would not want to live a redneck life my self but respect their rights as Americans to do so.

Theres more to Southern Culture than the Redneck Stereotype. There is the Neighborly feeling folks getting to know each other in the neighborhood. There is the throwing your hand up at a stranger or a nod to the head. there is a since of community which Asheville lacks.

Anyone who doest look status quo is treated poorly, anyone who has any hints of southern is treated like an undiserable. I love the open mindedness in this are by the transplants.

This faux Hippy garbage is just that garbage.

At the risk of getting lots of negative feedback…Why is it that so many equate being Southern only with being a redneck? There is another part of southern tradition that celebrates the family, helping one's neighbors, and having a kindred relationship with the land and its rich agricultural history. Being Southern is not necessarily such a bad thing. Otherwise, why do so many want to leave the cities to move here, raise their children here, retire here or even just visit here? Sure, we have our faults. However, I sometimes miss the days when people spoke to each other as they passed on the sidewalk, when sitting on the front porch was the Sunday social event, doors were left unlocked and little kids learned how to fish, build a tree house, or even watch their grandmother make homemade jam. True Southerners are proud of who they are, proud of their culture…but they are also some of the kindest "folk" you will ever meet!

Total rubish. Can anyone explain what a return to southern values means? Im afraid my interpretation may not mesh well with this groups definition. Southern values to me include ideas such as self-reliance, sustainability, freedom of thought, and maybe just a wee bit of distrust for government

I have the feeling that this group has set out on a different azmuth from most.

It would really be nice if someone opened a real southern home cooking restaurant in one of these empty restaurants. Check out the Moose Cafe, it stays full all the time. It is just home southern cooking.

Kudos to Nick. The Phan, Mee Maw & Grumpy Old Lady sound like a bunch of haters.

" . . .Name another city in the south that had a vibrant Jewish and Greek population like Asheville had at the turn of the century. . ."

Try Columbia, SC, and Charleston, SC, for two.

Let me repeat this for some clarity:

Asheville is in the South no matter how you spin it Mat.

So its the Paris of the south when it fits but different at other times???

Asheville was a mix of Appalachia and the South but more of a southern city on par with Charleston or Savannah.

Im glad you like it here now but dont get used to it, when the economic crash happens these warm and fuzzy shops of Asheville will not make it, neither will the bars on every corner. If gentrification doesnt wipe out this Faux Hippy Crap stain, the economy will.

mat catastrophe….if Asheville is not in the south then where is it located. Historically all states below the Mason Dixon line are considered the south.

When Asking the question of "Has Asheville lost its southern roots?" That question CAN NOT be answered by someone who themselves is not southern born or raised. As you can see from the comments on this page, too many of you that were born and raised outside the south seem to think being southern means poor white trailer trash, redneck, racists, rebel flag waving, toothless hillbillies. Ask someone who born in the south has a completely different opinion & view of what it is to be southern.

Some of you think that Asheville & WNC are more "mountain" and can not be considered southern. There's no one specific type of southern culture, each part of the south has its own unique culture such as Cajun, Low Country of SC & GA, The Gulf, and the Appalachians. While each have their own unique forms of cultures, religious views, food and accents. They still share in many of their fundamental beliefs, ways of life, mannerisms, appreciation for family, and countless other ways. So Asheville for some may fall more under the category of Appalachian or Mountain, they are still a huge part of the south in many way.

What I don't understand is why when someone wants to create a more southern view then people get all up in arms and fight with such passion against it. As if being southern is something we should be ashamed of, something we should keep in secrete or work hard to distance ourselves from. But in Asheville a person can start up a Church of Satan and it would be accepted with open arms. Someone could demolish Grove Park to build a large dog park and several organic grocery stores and herbal pharmacies and very few people would have issue with it. Smoking tobacco could be completely outlawed but smoking marijuana made completely legal and all of Asheville would applaud, but just the mention of something southern in nature coming to town and everyone foams at the mouth, fights break out and protest marches get planned.

Southern people have as much right to be proud of their culture much like black people taking pride in the African heritage, Italian Americans taking pride in being Italian, Jews being proud of their culture. There is no difference between someone who is proud to say they are southern than there is for someone to say they are gay.

Is Asheville not big enough to allow those of us who are southern to have our culture, or is the transplants way of life the only socially acceptable culture for Asheville.

"Asheville is in the South no matter how you spin it Mat."

This isn't spin. This is a matter of cultural history, not political history. If you want to discuss it as a matter of political history, then certainly the argument can be made about Asheville as a Southern city. I don't think you can make that same claim about the cultural history.

"So its the Paris of the south when it fits but different at other times???"

I think that's the pipe dream of some marketing company, mixed in with the decades old delusion of the mountains being "southern".

"Asheville was a mix of Appalachia and the South but more of a southern city on par with Charleston or Savannah."

Really? I've been in Charleston for two years and the difference between the two is pretty wide.

"mat catastrophe….if Asheville is not in the south then where is it located. Historically all states below the Mason Dixon line are considered the south.

Again, that's a political and not cultural distinction. Political distinctions are at the whims of the people drawing lines, as the recent hullabaloo over redistricting shows and cultural identity is part of what is creating dissent among Asheville residents about being lumped into a Piedmont district.

Since this is a conversation about the supposed decline of southern culture, I would think that any consideration of simple political lines would be moot. Mountain cultures were developing a century before the Civil War drew lines and were developing in different ways than in the industrial north and agricultural south. If anything, they might be considered a mix of both cultures, along with all the idiosyncrasies of the original settlers in the area, who became separated in many ways from the history of both cultures around them.

"When Asking the question of "Has Asheville lost its southern roots?" That question CAN NOT be answered by someone who themselves is not southern born or raised"

You make a pretty wide assumption of my family history.

And this is a really sad comment that plays into a lot of these ridiculous notions about political lines and cultural divides. I was actually born in West Virginia, about twenty minutes from the Virgina state line. My family lived in Virginia. So am I, by birth, a Yankee or a Southerner? My family has roots in the Virginia and North Carolina mountains that stretch back over two hundred years. I certainly never bought into any mythology about being "southern".

"Ask someone who born in the south has a completely different opinion & view of what it is to be southern."

The exact same is true if you ask a northerner about the north. What's the point in even bringing it up? It works both ways and it's a bit tiresome in light of recent (last fifty years or so) population shifts.

"There's no one specific type of southern culture, each part of the south has its own unique culture such as Cajun, Low Country of SC & GA, The Gulf, and the Appalachians.

But is that the entire range of the Appalachians, which runs all the way to southern Pennsylvania (or even further north to Canada, according to some maps)? Or just the part that you want to place below the Mason-Dixon line?

Do you think that the person starting the Facebook group has a grasp of those subtle differences? The page says he misses "southern accents" in Asheville, a town which should have mountain accents, by all accounts. Appalachian accents, by the way, are incredibly distinct from southern or northern accents.

If there really is a mountain/southern culture that exists, why isn't it that culture that the FB group owner misses?

There isn't anything particularly horrifying or shameful about southern heritage, insomuch as it allows itself to be truly honest about its past. Having people running around screaming about "heritage, not hate" and "the war of northern aggression" really doesn't help much to alter the images of the south as a backwards, racist enclave of mouth breathing knuckle draggers. Sorry, that's just the way it is, much the same as a lot of the cultural weirdness of the north or the west is looked upon with incredible disdain in the south (or the mountains).

"Is Asheville not big enough to allow those of us who are southern to have our culture, or is the transplants way of life the only socially acceptable culture for Asheville."

And here's where we really get to the point of the whole thing. This is not the same nation of two hundred, one hundred, or even fifty years ago. There's been a series of migrations of peoples both north and south that have been altering the social, cultural, and political landscape of north, south, and mountains since the Sixties. Of course, the result is that people who are incredibly resistant to change (admittedly, a very southern quality, right?) fall into persecution mode and decry any and all outside influences as unclean or impure, while clinging more and more to an outdated set of cultural concepts, even in cases where those concepts are themselves the result of outside influence.

While I was writing this, the post above from "not a trasplant" showed up. It's pretty much a perfect example of most of what I've said here. A complete lack of acceptance of change, mixed in with some irrational attitudes toward different cultures. Southern is equated with "normal" and anything else is a vile abomination. Is that the message of Southern hospitality, or a look at the atavistic nature of people who hold a nostalgic view of a culture that does not and did not ever exist when and where they believe it did?

The only lack of understanding of culture is the, know it all transplants that move here to “Change” Asheville to this narrow minded utopia.

Asheville is a Southern City, And what you are doing is spinning you’re tires, Asheville was once a jewel in the South along with Charleston and Savannah they are not similar no, that’s a lousy straw man argument your failing at using. These Southern were cities were once all celebrated for their once culture and southern hospitality, now people from out of town move here and want to change it.

Asheville is a southern city, the only reason locals don’t speak up is because of the good open minded folks as your self, they don’t want to be ridiculed or made fun of. 200 years in Virginia big freaking deal, Good for you, I guarantee the folks where you are from are more accepting as you are.

And before you go there because it’s the only argument you try to have with a pathetic deflection your going to come up with, is the only folks to mention Race or political or the Garbage “Heritage not Hate” is you and your ilk. So don’t go there its insulting, especially to me when you don’t know what race I am, although someone as open minded as you would be shocked to hear it.

It’s not we are not open to change, we are not open to being made fun or having our traditions mocked and trampled on, it’s the fact the folks here are tired of you pushing us around and telling us a made up history of Asheville by destroying the real history of Asheville.

But like I said previously enjoy it while you can because this house of cards is not going to last in this economy because its not real, its not real jobs, its not real structure, its this garbage pipe dream built on warm and fuzzies.

What a Laughable rant.

A simple Google Search prooves you differently http://www.google.com/search?q=Asheville+Southern+City&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-Address&ie=&oe=

So all those titles are nothing? False Advertising by all those people? These are all lies?

Wait there is more:

The Art Deco Builings of Asheville, Asheville is very famous or this, and the architecture of the surrounding areas.

Asheville was a city of Industry until that changed, Real Jobs where people went to work made something they could be proud and make a lviing wage.

Asheville Rail Road his history forgotten

Traditional Arts and crafts, not this faux "I have a brush, camera, Potters Wheel, Rust junk layiing around" So im a artist attitude, realy art work that you can use, that was durable and reasonably priced.

When the original folks moved here they moved here to improve or give back not change it and redicule the locals. They embraced the LOCAL culture not ruin it or change it something unrecognizable.

So yes Asheville is a very Southern city deep in cultural history, but not any more folks would rather believe in the pipe dream of Paris of the South. So keep making fun of us, being smug treating the locals like shit just dont get your horned rimmed glasses and panties in a wad if we stop takiing this shit any more. Because enough is enough, our side is going to be heard weather you and your PBR sippiing friends care to hear it or not, because southern folk are going to be here long after you find a new flavor of the month to ruin.

Your google search got you 11 million results.

http://www.google.com/search?q=Asheville+Mountain+City

This one gives 27 million.

Failing a Strawman much Mat???

You should be used to it. . . .