Source: MOUNTAIN XPRESS, 9/25/20


One perk of living in Buncombe County is the patchwork quilt of farms that nestles close to Asheville’s urban offerings. Within minutes of leaving downtown, buckets of flowers burst from a U-pick farm in Leicester, and hefty pumpkins still warm from the sun beckon from a Fairview farm stand. But as Buncombe’s popularity — and population — continues to grow, development of farmland poses a threat to the county’s pastoral legacy. In the early 2000s, Western North Carolina began emerging on the national radar as a highly desirable place to live.

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