For months city hall and the Chamber of Commerce claimed that a Business Improvement District in downtown Asheville was inevitable.
But a wide array of locals mobilized — online, at public hearings, neighbor to neighbor — against this blatant power grab by the wealthy. Tonight Asheville city council casts its first vote on the BID, but already locals have turned what was supposedly a done deal into a desperate scramble to hold on to power.
My latest in the Asheville Blade delves into what changed and how a wide grassroots coalition emerged to stop the BID and the gentrification it embodies.
