On a recent visit to the North Carolina Arts Council’s (this is NC’s state arts agency) website (www.ncarts.org) under the Headlines heading I found a piece titled “Asheville in American Style Magazine” dated May 6, 2008. The short article informed me that in the June 2008 issue of American Style Magazine, Asheville, NC, was ranked second on the magazine’s annual Top 25 Art Destinations in small cities and towns category (populations of fewer than 100,000 people).
The article went on to describe Asheville’s art community and at the end suggested readers that for more info visit (www.americanstyle.com). Good thing I did.
I’m sure this news was sent to the NC Arts Council by someone from Asheville, but I’m surprised before posting this news that Jessica Orr, who posted this item for the Arts Council’s website, didn’t visit the magazine’s website and check out the lists. I’m assuming she didn’t because there was good news there about other cities in North Carolina and I can’t think of why she wouldn’t post that info along with the info about Asheville.
Also, it should be noted that this ranking of top art destinations is a readers’ poll. Only readers of American Style Magazine vote. We are also never told how many votes any of the cities on the top 25 list got. So we don’t know if a city got thousands of votes or twelve to make the list.
The poll is broken down into three categories – Top 25 Big Cities
(Populations of 500,000 or greater); Top 25 Mid-Sized Cities
(Populations of 100,000 to 499,999); and Top 25 Small Cities & Towns (Populations of fewer than 100,000).
Asheville came in 2nd on the Top 25 Small Cities & Towns list, but Chapel Hill, NC, came in 9th. I think that’s worth mentioning and I’m sure the folks in Chapel Hill think it is too. The top ranked city in this category was Santa Fe, NM.
There is more good news. Raleigh, NC, came in 24th on the Top 25 Mid-Sized Cities list (Buffalo, NY was number 1) and Charlotte, NC, came in 17th on the Top 25 Big Cities list (New York, NY was number 1). Why Orr didn’t include this news – I don’t know, but I think it’s great that Asheville was only second to Santa Fe, but I also think it’s great that three other cities in NC made the three lists.
And, since we cover the visual arts in both North and South Carolina, I’m happy to tell you that Beaufort, SC, came in 14th place on the Top 25 Small Cities & Towns list and Charleston, SC, came in 6th on the Top 25 Mid-Sized Cities list.
So the Carolinas have six cities on these lists – not bad considering many states had no cities on any of the three lists.
If you want to see the other cities on these lists, visit (www.americanstyle.com).