Not what it seems. Tourists have no idea, in fact pretty much anyone who has been there for less than 10 years has no idea. It is not downtown and Haywood Rd. It is not somewhere that is friendly to the ignorant or worthy of your trust or assumptions. But it is a great place full of great
people if you are either #1 a visitor and real about it, or #2 that you, yes you, are also from the area or have equivalent local experience (at least 10 years, likely 15+). And we know when you're lying so just
don't
even try. If you flex native on a local you'll get robbed blind and you won't even know it happened you stupid
asshat. But if you start thinking about moving away after moving here, you'll find out you can't move away because the quartz, uranium, leylines in the ground, fairly decent
drugs, amazing outdoors, wonderful
people and culture, and eventual ignorance of what you thought Asheville was, are the things that actually keep you around. At this point, you're fucked. Abandon your dreams for a halfway decent
reality.