Creating Community Connections: Saving an Historically Agrarian Town on the Cusp of Suburbanization

Abstract

Abstract Agrarian communities, once proud, self-contained, insular worlds, are being transformed into places where people only live; they work, shop, and obtain services elsewhere. (Salamon 5 - 6) The Riceville valley is a historically agrarian community near Asheville, North Carolina. Over the last two decades, however, Riceville’s historic fields and forests have been threatened by encroaching development. Many newer residents in the community have begun to organize themselves around the issue of land preservation in the valley, but have largely been unsuccessful due primarily to ideological gaps between the old-timers in the community who own most of the undeveloped land and the newcomers in the valley who are fighting to save the land. This paper explores why these differences occur, while proposing a way to connect these two distinct groups of neighbors. By collecting the history of the community and making it accessible to both the old-timer and newcomer residents in Riceville, the barriers between these populations have begun to break down. This research note also offers a short guide to creating community connections through collecting history.