Growing up, I used to walk up the hill to my neighbors’ farm and pet their horses and llamas. On top of the hill stood an old red barn from the early 1900s, overlooking the Seven Sisters mountain range. That barn, to me, always stood out as a symbol of perseverance. Despite everything, that simple, wooden structure persisted for more than a century.

That red barn is now gone. In its place stands several soulless, puke-green contemporary houses. These new houses stand out like an eyesore, competing with the natural beauty of the mountains for attention and attracting city-slickers who want an escape, but want nothing to do with country life. 

Now, when I look up at that hill, I see a stark reminder that the Southern Appalachia I once knew is dying; I see a giant middle finger to the honest, decent folks who welcomed outsiders in with open minds and open hearts years ago, only to have their homes, businesses and cultures wiped away under the guise of “progress.”

Suburbanization of rural areas, akin to the gentrification of urban areas, unwarrantedly disturbs and complicates humble communities. Investors attract outsiders by placing a few corporate frills and spendthrift opportunities around town, bringing in just enough of the comfort and familiarity coziness of suburbia to make Appalachia tolerable to strangers who aren’t interested in our culture, but just enough competition to completely wipe out the small businesses and the local economy.

Small businesses are the backbone of the Appalachian economy. When corporate franchises like Starbucks and Home Depot come in to and attract outsiders, the tiny coffee shops and hardware stores can no longer turn a profit and are forced to sell to investors. As outsiders trickle in and continue to cling to the bland familiarity of the places they left, rent continues to go up, small businesses continue to struggle and investors continue to scoop them up at every opportunity. Suddenly the town no longer belongs to the townsfolk, and home no longer feels like home.  

Fifteen years later, you walk back up that hill to find one of the constants and comforts of your childhood has now been replaced with sterile, heartless housing for wealthy retirees. You look down at the town in the valley from the newly -paved cul-de-sac, no longer home to the horses and llamas, and realize you no longer recognize anything there. You look out at the mountains and see mansions peeking out of the trees, and realize what was once your home now belongs to them. They took your town, your mountains and the little last sliver of hope you desperately clung to all those years, and left you with an ugly mess to clean up.

Leaving home wasn’t what I wanted to do. It was what I had to do to stop my heart from breaking. I saw firsthand how the suburbanization of my hometown deprived many honest, hard-working people of everything they built for themselves. It brought cars –– and lots of them –– to two-lane country backroads, causing dangerous traffic on hairpin turns and stressing out locals who never signed up for hustle and bustle. It destroyed places formerly untouched by careless humans and irreversibly ruined places we all once loved. Outsiders wanted to flee the city, but brought the very place they tried to leave with them when they moved to our quaint little town. 

This problem is not unique to Western North Carolina. Investors and banks will carelessly plow through any vulnerable community they can in order to turn a quick buck. Small-town America is now under the microscope, and every community is on a watchlist to become the next Buncombe County.