the last word - october 2003
by sandi tomlin-sutker

I drive 30 minutes to and from Asheville for work several days a week. Sometimes, in the winter, when it’s already dark before I leave my shop, I dread the drive. But the minute I step out of the car at home, I know why the drive is always worth it. The stresses of my day just fall away when I breathe the clear air, energized by the rushing creek out back. And when I look at the deep sky strewn with stars and planets I feel again my place in the universe, yet know the smallness of my cares against the lavish immensity of the Milky Way.

This past July, we have been in this house 12 years. That may not seem like much time. Out here in Madison County, you’re still a newcomer until you’re family has been here a couple of generations. But my life until this last decade has been full of moving on, adjusting to new places, moving on again. By the time I graduated from high school I’d lived in 18 different houses! Even after I left home, I kept moving on, moving around, searching for my true place.

And finally, I have found it. Not just this wonderful old house on Little Pine Creek, but the community that exists in Western North Carolina—the land itself seems to call to and attract certain kinds of people: people who value these ancient mountains, rivers, rocks; people who understand how precious these resources are and want to protect them. Of course, not everyone remembers where our true wealth, our very existence, comes from. Some are blinded by short-sighted goals to develop, bring in more people, more industry, more traffic and pollution. They are enslaved by the “tyranny of small decisions”, unable or unwilling to see that the “law of unintended consequences”, if unheeded, will destroy the very beauty and richness that brought people to the area in the first place.

Balancing the needs of diverse constituents is never easy. Governing bodies are not always representative of this diversity, and often have shorter term or narrowly defined goals than are healthy for the whole community. This means all of us must be vigilant, thoughtful and willing to communicate our ideas and ideals. I remember a time, around 1980, when such vigilance paid off. A large Mall developer had presented a proposal to City Council to raze most of the downtown’s “old, empty, dilapidated” buildings to build a covered mall. City Council had agreed to consider the possibility—after all, the city, just finished paying off debts from the Great Depression era, desperately needed a boost to revenues. Imagine what Asheville would be today, if not for concerned citizens who arose in protest to gather enough signatures to clearly defeat the proposal. And if not for citizens who came into the downtown area, one by one, taking the risks of building businesses, struggling through the early, lean years to create the groundwork for the vibrant, attractive city we all are blessed with today.

This is truly the Power of Place.