opinion

Asheville is a boomtown, but for whom?

That sound you hear is the collective grumble of Asheville residents every time a new hotel is proposed. As the marketing push to make Asheville the Charleston of the mountains kicks into hyper-drive, for the folks who live and work here our city is at a crossroads. For many in Asheville, tourism profiles like "9 reasons you must visit Asheville" has turned into "9 times you can't believe how much that house in West Asheville sold for."

A recent move by the North Carolina General Assembly to raise Asheville's hotel tax and more importantly to keep those tax dollars exclusively under the control of the Tourism Development Authority has only increased the grumbling about hotels and has made public the split between some of our civic and elected leaders about the future of our city.

In addition to Western North Carolina's natural beauty, the Tourism Development Authority has much to promote with its $4.4 million ad budget.

"Tube the French Broad River!"

"More local breweries than anyone can responsibly take on in a pub crawl!"

"Not one, but two fancy donut shops!"

Asheville and Western North Carolina boast many attractions to feature in national magazine profiles. But as we market ourselves as a great place to visit, is Asheville still a great place to live?

The problem with the hotel boom is not that the character of downtown Asheville is changing — the list of hollowed out cities praying for an economic revival is very, very long — the problem is the kind of jobs being created and the poverty wages they too often pay. Much needed investment and density in our city center is a distraction from the real issues confronting Asheville. Low wages, a lack of professional jobs and sky-high rents are pushing people out of the city. That's been going on for a few years now. I've heard more than one recent UNCA grad laugh at the prospect of building a career in Asheville.

Earlier this year the Citizen-Times reported, "To afford a modest, two-bedroom apartment at Fair Market Rent in Buncombe County, renters need to earn $16.48 per hour …" That hourly wage calculated by the National Low Income Housing Coalition assumes a two-bedroom rental price of $857. (Don't laugh, that's not a typo.) Almost one-in-three children in Buncombe County is "food insecure," meaning they do not have regular access to food at home. MANNA FoodBank and other local organizations do great work to combat this problem, but during the summer when kids cannot access school lunch programs, their crucial work isn't enough. Simply put, too many families in Buncombe County aren't being paid a wage that lets them buy the basics.

The City Council has a chance to bring all its employees' pay up to a living wage when it meets on June 23 to approve next year's budget. The living wage in Asheville as calculated by the nonprofit organization Just Economics of Western Carolina is $12.50 per hour or $11 with benefits. That living wage represents just the bare minimum to survive, in effect the real minimum wage, $3 donuts not included. This policy change won't impact wages for the vast majority of our city's residents, but it is an important step, if largely symbolic.

I see the culture, art and people that attracted so many of us to the mountains, whether 25 or five years ago, being displaced. And Asheville is still struggling to integrate the African-American community into the city at large.

I loathe the neon lights on the Aloft Hotel as much as anyone, but cities that thrive reinvent themselves many times over and no one wants to return to a time when downtown was almost razed to make way for a shopping mall. The real question we face as a city is: How are we going to provide living wages and affordable housing to the people who keep Asheville running?

Aaron Sarver lives and works in Asheville.