America's small cities being overrun by tourists
Overrun by Tourists, American Cities Are Taking Aim at Hotels
Places such as Charleston, S.C., Asheville, NC, and Portland, Maine, are starting to feel pressure after a decade-long boom in tourism. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...un-by-tourists https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/...v1/1000x-1.jpg A new hotel going up in Charleston’s French Quarter. PHOTOGRAPHER: EVA VERBEECK/BLOOMBERG Quote:
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I think Asheville reached the breaking point when a plan to turn the Flatiron Building, home to dozens of offices, including several non-profits, into a hotel was brought before the city council and approved. All those organizations and offices are out on their ass, and people are not happy about it. Meanwhile, fully three percent of the housing stock in Asheville is given over to Airbnb rentals, the highest percentage in the country, while fully half of the renters in Buncombe County are rent-burdened and pay more than a third of their income on rent. And meanwhile, a city of about 93,000 and the infrastructure to serve it, continue to also serve an estimated eleven million tourists per year. Asheville is rapidly being loved to death.
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I've been a tourist to all 3 of those cities. I haven't been to Asheville since the 1990s though.
Portland doesn't really struggle with the crowds though, it's easy to fly in to Portland, or drive up from Boston, or take the train from Boston. It's the points north of Portland that struggle. Mid-Coast Maine in the summer is pretty awful, with heavy traffic all piled up on a 2 lane highway - US 1. https://goo.gl/maps/c3B7vuzBV4J6UNzd6 |
Limiting the construction of new hotels in the era of Airbnb seems idiotic, quite honestly. It's the same rationale that people use to oppose new high-cost residential buildings, which ultimately causes more people to be gentrified out of historic units of housing.
Ultimately, I just don't think there's a good way to limit tourism in smaller, picturesque cities with nice seasonal weather and walkable downtowns. |
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Not saying this is best from a public policy perspective, but it has certainly worked. It's quite easy to restrict tourism. |
There are like a dozen small American cities overrun by tourists, because they are tourist attractions. The vast majority are not. And it’s not nearly as bad in Charleston or Asheville as it is in hundreds of small European cities.
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Been to all three cities..plus Moab within past few years and the key is to go off season. Moab and Coastal Maine (along with NH and MA) are absolutely horrible peak season.
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Key West residents fighting chamber of commerce types over giant cruise ships over-running the island:
https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-n...le1955604.html Quote:
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Silly and inaccurate title on the thread. More accurately: several small tourist cities have lots of tourists.
In other news, LA has tons of cars. |
don’t like crowds, go further. most nice places in the west are not crowded, even drop dead gorgeous coastal towns. i spent time in a town that felt like a fucking art film with one pub and one store in northern california...i have no need for putting up with fucking tourist crowds in america. plenty of space...
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Sounds like a typical summer day in a few hundred different small cities around Europe.
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Solvang, CA Montecito, CA Santa Cruz, CA Monterey, CA Big Sur, CA etc. - so many great spots out West. |
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In SoCal, Laguna Beach is overrun by tourists in summer, especially during the late summer Festival of Arts. But so far no pressure to restrict hotels. La Jolla near San Diego and Coronado are also crowded. Santa Monica is too but NINBYs do keep most new construction away.
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Lots of American cities could use more tourists, this is a good thing
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The parallels of this thread to NIMBYism is astounding, except here we have woke urbanists, complaining about people and crowds in desirable locations, compared to UnWoke NIMBYs complaining about the same exact thing.
Isn't that amazing, gang? People that want to go to a desirable place are ruining it for all those other people that also want to visit that same desirable place. Man. Alive. Woke. |
louisville has become a bigger destination for me since nashville sort of has become a bit much.
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And yes, overrun by tourists. :haha: It def seemed more bustling than my last visit. Santa Monica is easily the most chaotic of the one's mentioned though. Nimbys or not, downtown Santa Monica on the weekends is insane, and seems as if it's getting busier each time I go. The Expo line has helped getting those crowds there, for sure. |
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