Both Chimney Rock Village and Mars Hill are now in a process of planned change, but they're not so much reinventing as rediscovering themselves. The histories and traditions of these towns play a large part in that rediscovery process. The coalitions brought together by HandMade in America for economic and community development planning include not just the expected representatives of government, education, and business, but also local artisans and artists. We were never intended to do that. We first thought about ourselves in terms of economic development, but that quickly became community development.
Civic change comes about from working with people's culture.
Funding an Idea HandMade in America grew out of a 20-year strategic plan developed in 1994. Anderson, then with the Asheville Chamber of Commerce, was one of several principals whose ideas gave it shape. The area's craft community was undervalued, she says, and artists and business leaders initially eyed each other with mutual suspicion. Economic considerations are important, of course. HandMade's guidebook on the area's arts and crafts attractions.