Touted as an innovative transformation, Project Aspire — the huge development launched by the YMCA and First Baptist Church — is instead something all too familiar: gentrification inflicted against a local Black community.
My latest at the Asheville Blade delves into how Aspire is actually based around a mega hotel and unaffordable housing, all behind a facade of public service. The modern-day redlining it represents continues the damage done by this city's segregationist status quo, and must be fought.