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Old 04-04-2014, 01:02 PM
 
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Which would you rate better on:

1) Food
2) Nightlife/Arts
3) Public transit
4) Scenery
5) Friendly/welcoming

I haven't been to Asheville yet, but it seems pretty similar to Eugene in terms of size, and in terms of being nestled among forested mountains and being boutique.
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Old 04-04-2014, 01:24 PM
 
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Asheville in a landslide. Much nicer areas in Oregon than Eugene
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Old 04-04-2014, 02:53 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy View Post
Asheville in a landslide. Much nicer areas in Oregon than Eugene
Interesting, because in my opinion Eugene is the only city in the Pacific Northwest I'd truly call nice. The country in that part of the US is amazing though.
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Old 04-05-2014, 12:54 AM
 
Location: Nashville, TN
9,598 posts, read 9,189,012 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by spicymeatball View Post
Which would you rate better on:

1) Food
2) Nightlife/Arts
3) Public transit
4) Scenery
5) Friendly/welcoming

I haven't been to Asheville yet, but it seems pretty similar to Eugene in terms of size, and in terms of being nestled among forested mountains and being boutique.
You need to visit. Asheville destroys Eugene in every category.

1.) Many organic, locally owned establishments and grocery options at all price points.
2.) Downtown is upscale, urban and eclectic with many new hotels, residences, art galleries, glass shops, restaurants, museums, and Biltmore Estate is nearby. Nightlife includes many options for young singles including many bars, night clubs, and outdoor festivals.
3.) Buses, taxis, shuttles, and a great ride and share program throughout the city. Interstates 40, 240, and 26 surround the city, and many other super highways provide easy access for the area.
4.) Blue Ridge Mountains, Smokey Mountains, Cherokee Mountains and national parks surround the area. Many rivers, lakes, and waterfalls provide unlimited outdoor opportunities. Asheville is in close proximity to the Tri-Cities area (TN), Knoxville (TN), and shares a media market with Greenville/Spartanburg (SC) which have even more attractions.
5.) Asheville is a diverse city and tourist destination. It is also very family-friendly and offers many activities for children.
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Old 04-05-2014, 04:17 AM
 
Location: Pacific NW
6,413 posts, read 12,085,628 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shakeesha View Post
You need to visit. Asheville destroys Eugene in every category.

1.) Many organic, locally owned establishments and grocery options at all price points.
2.) Downtown is upscale, urban and eclectic with many new hotels, residences, art galleries, glass shops, restaurants, museums, and Biltmore Estate is nearby. Nightlife includes many options for young singles including many bars, night clubs, and outdoor festivals.
3.) Buses, taxis, shuttles, and a great ride and share program throughout the city. Interstates 40, 240, and 26 surround the city, and many other super highways provide easy access for the area.
4.) Blue Ridge Mountains, Smokey Mountains, Cherokee Mountains and national parks surround the area. Many rivers, lakes, and waterfalls provide unlimited outdoor opportunities. Asheville is in close proximity to the Tri-Cities area (TN), Knoxville (TN), and shares a media market with Greenville/Spartanburg (SC) which have even more attractions.
5.) Asheville is a diverse city and tourist destination. It is also very family-friendly and offers many activities for children.
I don't know Asheville, so I'm only judging by statistics. But ... if you think it "destroys Eugene in every category" ... well, you're mistaken. You may prefer it, but it doesn't destroy Eugene.

Let's start with Eugene is twice the size of Asheville. The median age of Asheville is 39. Eugene it's 33. The University of Oregon dominates the city ... with the students. The young, college-aged students. It's known as a party school. So I think that more than accounts for your #2.

1.) This is the Willamette Valley. And Eugene is hippy central. There are plenty of organic options, farmers markets, farm stands, etc. Not to mention a thriving restaurant scene, and a growing food truck presence.

2.) I'd imagine that Eugene could match Asheville festival for festival.

3.) Eugene's transit system is about three times the size of Asheville's, both in number of buses, and in ridership. It's a major biking city, as well. The city is served by Amtrak, with two commuter trains a day passing through headed northbound, and one line running north and south. That'd be north to Vancouver, Canada and south to San Diego, California. Eugene is on I-5, again, which runs from border to border of the nation. Though as usual, I've never understood how anyone thinks it's a great feature of any city as to how easy it is to get out of it, to somewhere else.

4.) Seriously? Yeah, there are a few mountains around Eugene ... the only flat way out of town is to the north. The coast is 50 miles in one direction, and Crater Lake National park about 100 (mountain miles) to the east. And plenty of rivers, including the Willamette River that runs through the middle of the city. Plenty of hiking, biking, rafting, hunting, etc., or most any other outdoor activity you can imagine.

5.) Diversity? Okay, Asheville has more blacks. Eugene is only 5% more "white" than Asheville, though. It has four times the number of native Americans, three times the Asians, and about 50% more Hispanics. Eugene is just about split evenly male/female, while Asheville is about 5% more female than male. Eugene also has a higher percentage of people who are foreign born.

Again, I'm not saying that Asheville's not a lovely place. It looks to be. But to say it "destroys" Eugene is kind of silly. They're fairly comparable with their "attractions."
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Old 04-05-2014, 11:38 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EnricoV View Post
Let's start with Eugene is twice the size of Asheville.
No dog in the fight, but that must be going by municipal population. Asheville is larger going by MSA (437K vs 356K) and urbanized area (280K vs 247K). Overall they are pretty comparable size-wise.
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Old 04-05-2014, 12:18 PM
 
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1) Food - Both are okay for food, though I think Asheville has a better restaurant scene in it's downtown.
2) Nightlife/Arts - Probably fairly similar in terms of what level of arts/culture attractions they get--both are college towns. Asheville has a better selection of bars downtown though.
3) Public transit - Eugene/Springfield has bus rapid transit so it's pretty good for city of it's size.
4) Scenery - Asheville is set in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains, so it's a step above Eugene. Eugene's best scenery is reached driving to the Cascades to the east. Both are good for daytrips.
5) Friendly/welcoming - Both are friendly, Asheville has some Southern charm which is a little more outgoing than the Northwest, but neither city ever seemed unfriendly.

Personally I like Asheville more. I've spent years going through Eugene to visit friends or go to football games, and while it's nice, there's something about it that always seems underwhelming for Oregon's second biggest city. The downtown could really use some work on getting fixed up--there's a bunch of boxy 70s style buildings and it doesn't feel as lively as it could be--and the little district near the college feels cut-off from downtown. It seems sleepy in general outside of Ducks games going on. Downtown Eugene could have some potential if they could ever attract more businesses down there or do something else to fix it up.

Asheville has a great downtown for it's size, a nice mix of building-styles, and it has more going on than Eugene in it's core. It's also a tourist town though as well which sort of adds to the activity level--and it seems like more of a place for transplants outside the area to move to(so maybe a little tougher housing market). I like the mix of sort of typical college town with an old historic downtown with the surrounding Appalachian culture. And the Blue Ridge Parkway is beautiful. Eugene seems to rely basically on it's college town rep for the most part, it's got a mix of Oregon cliches and you have the same coast/mountains daytrip opportunities as the rest of the Willamette Valley(and it might be the most sort of typical mix of the Oregon cultural spectrum)--it's not a bad place, but I never had much interest in spending much time there after I got past the immediate post-college period.

Last edited by Deezus; 04-05-2014 at 01:33 PM..
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Old 04-05-2014, 12:20 PM
 
Location: Pacific NW
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Yeah, yeah. You can change the population of any place by adding on as much, or as little, of the area around it. If I'm talking about a "city" ... I think it's confined to the actual city. Not some arbitrary grouping. Some of them are so large an area, it's ridiculous. It doesn't reflect how many people use the city.

And I'm not saying that Eugene is preferable to Asheville ... just that the "destroys" part is silly. It doesn't.
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Old 04-05-2014, 03:01 PM
 
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Asheville.

I went to college in Eugene and have only visited Asheville (a couple of times), and I should confess that I dislike the PacNW geographically and culturally. But the only categories you listed in which Eugene is even competitive are transit, and I will say that public transit is much better in Eugene than Asheville, and scenery (which is highly subjective...I think western Oregon is a dank, dreary and kind of ugly place and obviously many, many people disagree)
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Old 04-05-2014, 04:42 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EnricoV View Post
Yeah, yeah. You can change the population of any place by adding on as much, or as little, of the area around it. If I'm talking about a "city" ... I think it's confined to the actual city. Not some arbitrary grouping. Some of them are so large an area, it's ridiculous. It doesn't reflect how many people use the city.
If anything, city population is usually the most arbitrary measure and here on C-D, most times people use the term "city" when it is really the metro area in view. Nobody here is going to say that Jacksonville, FL is bigger than Miami, DC, Boston, Seattle, etc. since that doesn't mean much in reality and there are different ways of establishing municipal boundaries based on state law (e.g., ease of annexation, city-county consolidation, etc.). MSA is a way of quantifying the larger labor market and urbanized area--which comes the closest to truly defining a city in the way we commonly think of it--quantifies the population within the built-up areas irrespective of arbitrary jurisdictional boundaries. But in this case, it can be said that Eugene is certainly denser within the city limits since it is more populous and both municipalities consist of almost the same land area.
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