Homestead mailing list

[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

On Feb 28, 2008, at 9:15 PM, Lisa K.V. Perry wrote:

> We wanted to live in/near Asheville NC. We may yet end up there. We  
> love it
> as much, if not more so than Floyd, but land prices there need an  
> awful
> economy to threaten to bring them back to earth.

I've not been to Asheville. Have read again and again how wonderful it  
is and how the wonderfulness has caused a massive invasion of  
newcomers who have driven up prices and traffic. Natives are mostly  
dismayed; newcomers now want to build a wall. This is a fairly common  
story. I always feel sorry when some new book lists the greatest  
places to live. People with more money than common sense flock there  
and substantially change the essence of the place.

North Carolina has many great qualities. During research for my last  
edition I found they had one big negative: a crime problem exacerbated  
by too few prisons and not enough state land on which to build more.  
They have no doubt done something positive by now.

NC is the destination of choice for those who have moved from the NE  
to Florida and then changed their minds after living in FL for a few  
years. They go back north but only part way. They are known as half- 
backs.

The first letter from readers on my web site is from a woman in North  
Carolina.