A year after a controversial hotel vote set new political boundaries on the issue, Council again faces a similar dilemma with an election on the way. A look at the latest battle lines in the hotel wars. Above: An image of the proposed Embassy Suites project, an eight story hotel

Yes, this is actually happening. And Asheville’s political culture is absolutely, horribly unprepared for the coming years. That needs to change now. Above: protesters outside the Sept. 12 Trump campaign rally in downtown Asheville. Photos by Max Cooper. Over the chaos of the past few months, there’s a memory that’s

Asheville City Council delays a major hotel battle, expands (very slightly) the city’s borders and mulls what input on local election districts might look like Above: Asheville City Council member Julie Mayfield. File photo by Max Cooper. For awhile, it looked like Asheville City Council might begin 2017 like it

The next year promises to be a major — and contentious one — for local government. Here’s three of the forces that will continue to define our city’s divisions Above: City Hall by night. Photo by Max Cooper. While plenty of the attention was on national politics last year, local

The Asheville Blade covered a lot of ground as we fought through a tumultuous, trying, important and groundbreaking 2016 alongside the people of the city we love Above: Fireworks over City Hall. Photo by Bill Rhodes. Well that was a hell of a year. As 2016 (finally!) meets its end

This election season saw plenty of changes among the Buncombe commissioners. A look at what happened, what changed and the issues — from green spaces to transparency — facing the county leaders in the coming years. Democrats dominated up and down the ticket in Buncombe County during the 2016 election

Airbnb-style rentals are a massive, controversial issue in Asheville. The Blade’s built a map to show where they’re being halted, who’s profiting, who owns them and more as local government continues to wrangle with this complicated behemoth Above: a shot from the Blade‘s interactive map showing the impact of Airbnb

Prizes! Gift subscriptions! Journalism! All part of our winter fund drive so we can keep fighting, with your help, in the year to come Welcome back, readers. It’s been a hell of a year, and through all the upsets, setbacks, tragedies and victories the Blade has sought to bring this city

Local Democrats gather to vote on a new Buncombe County commissioner in a ‘basement election,’ with civil rights activist and former banker Al Whitesides emerging as the first African-American commissioner Above: Al Whitesides receives applause from Democratic Party members during the Dec. 5 ‘basement election,’ where the party chose a

An exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at the planning meeting for a local, not-at-all-cluelessly-awful Black Friday promotional video for a business consortium Recently, the following promotional video has been making the rounds causing, as one might expect, some comment. The Blade has obtained an exclusive transcript of the decision-making process behind it. We’ve