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With a population of 75,000, Asheville is the largest city in Western North Carolina and serves as the area's economic and cultural nerve center in many ways. Talk about your A-list cities: Asheville is amassing accolades on many fronts.

Billed as a place where "altitude affects attitude," Asheville is surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains. It's been renowned as a place to retreat and take in natural wonders since the 1800s, and in recent decades, its once-dormant downtown has exploded with commerce and entertainments. The renovation of old buildings and careful construction of new ones have maintained a delicate balance. Historic downtown Asheville is a booming central business district, recognized for the finest collection of art deco buildings this side of Miami Beach. Diverse housing options are also an important factor in the quality of life. As Asheville's economy grows, the selection of housing is keeping pace. New developments beyond the city limits complement established neighborhoods surrounding the central business district. In fact, stories about Asheville's quality of life have become a staple of national media outlets. In 2007, the city topped Relocate-America.com's list of the 100 best places to live. In 2009, U.S. News & World Report named Asheville one of "America's best affordable places to retire." And in an August 2011 report, Good Morning America pegged Asheville as one of the "10 most beautiful places in America."

Part of that beauty springs from the mountain setting. Everyone in and around Asheville knows the best part of living here is the thrill that hits you whenever you realize there's a mountain out your window. The other part comes from the architecture. Asheville's downtown is home to scores of historic buildings, many of which are noted for their art deco accents. Nearby is the Biltmore Estate, site of the Biltmore Mansion, one of the largest private residences ever built. Completed in 1895, today the 250-room, French renaissance-style house and the 8,000-acre grounds are open to guests for tours, dinners, concerts and outdoor activities. The gardens, stables, restaurants, winery and hotel all help make this North Carolina's top tourism destination, with more than a million people now visiting each year.

Asheville is an arts mecca. In both 2010 and 2011, the readers of American Style magazine voted it the "top small-city arts destination" in the country. Downtown is full of galleries and s…

With a population of 75,000, Asheville is the largest city in Western North Carolina and serves as the area's economic and cultural nerve center in many ways. Talk about your A-list cities: Asheville is amassing accolades on many fronts.

Billed as a place where "altitude affects attitude," Asheville is surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains. It's been renowned as a place to retreat and take in natural wonders since the 1800s, and in recent decades, its once-dormant downtown has exploded with commerce and entertainments. The renovation of old buildings and careful construction of new ones have maintained a delicate balance. Historic downtown Asheville is a booming central business district, recognized for the finest collection of art deco buildings this side of Miami Beach. Diverse housing options are also an important factor in the quality of life. As Asheville's economy grows, the selection of housing is keeping pace. New developments beyond the city limits complement established neighborhoods surrounding the central business district. In fact, stories about Asheville's quality of life have become a staple of national media outlets. In 2007, the city topped Relocate-America.com's list of the 100 best places to live. In 2009, U.S. News & World Report named Asheville one of "America's best affordable places to retire." And in an August 2011 report, Good Morning America pegged Asheville as one of the "10 most beautiful places in America."

Part of that beauty springs from the mountain setting. Everyone in and around Asheville knows the best part of living here is the thrill that hits you whenever you realize there's a mountain out your window. The other part comes from the architecture. Asheville's downtown is home to scores of historic buildings, many of which are noted for their art deco accents. Nearby is the Biltmore Estate, site of the Biltmore Mansion, one of the largest private residences ever built. Completed in 1895, today the 250-room, French renaissance-style house and the 8,000-acre grounds are open to guests for tours, dinners, concerts and outdoor activities. The gardens, stables, restaurants, winery and hotel all help make this North Carolina's top tourism destination, with more than a million people now visiting each year.

Asheville is an arts mecca. In both 2010 and 2011, the readers of American Style magazine voted it the "top small-city arts destination" in the country. Downtown is full of galleries and shops displaying all manner of arts (as is the Biltmore Village area, just south of downtown), from traditional mountain crafts to more modern creations.

The Asheville Art Museum, which has helped anchor the arts scene for decades, recently announced major expansion plans. The Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center, also downtown, hosts exhibits, talks and workshops that celebrate the legacy of the college, a noted avant-garde institution from 1933-1957. A rising jewel of the arts scene is the River Arts District, an ever-expanding complex of studios and galleries near the French Broad River that's also becoming one of Asheville's culinary and entertainment hubs.

The performing arts also abound in Asheville, with dozens of venues hosting live music, readings, theatre and comedy. The Asheville Civic Center is the largest, with both a 7,600-seat arena and the 2,400-seat Thomas Wolfe Auditorium. The center hosts everything from performances by the Asheville Symphony Orchestra to roller derby bouts starring Asheville's own Blue Ridge Rollergirls. More intimate performances take place at the Diana Wortham Theatre, a 500-seat venue that's part of a downtown cultural and educational center, Pack Place, and the recently opened Altamont Theatre, a 120-seat performance spot that boasts some of the best acoustics in the area.

The Orange Peel, a renovated 1970sera music club, draws national acts on a nightly basis and was recently named one of the best rock venues in America by Rolling Stone. The Grey Eagle, a smaller but still substantial establishment in the River Arts District, also brings in top talents from around the region and the country. And on just about any given night, a dozen or more smaller bars and clubs feature live music of various kinds.

There's also a burgeoning comedy scene, with both amateur and professional standup comics performing several times a weeks at various venues. The annual Laugh Your Asheville Off, held in in July, is the biggest comedy festival in the Southeast.

Some of the area's biggest art events take place in Asheville. In July and October, the Civic Center is home to the four-day Craft Fair of the Southern Highlands, which has taken place for more than 60 years. At the event, more than 200 local and regional craftspeople fill the center, offering their creations of clay, fiber, glass, leather, metal, mixed media, natural materials, paper, wood and jewelry. A newer event, The Big Crafty, has exploded in popularity in recent years. Held in July and December at Pack Place, it's a kind of community bazaar, with quirky handmade crafts, local food and beer, and music.

Asheville's signature festival is Bele Chere, held downtown every summer since 1979. Held the last weekend in July, the festival draws hundreds of thousands of visitors for a wide variety of arts, music, food, drink, vendors, performances and children's activities. For those who find the festival too big for their liking, there's a smaller but still-vibrant event in September, the Lexington Avenue Arts and Fun Festival, a family-friendly celebration the funkier side of Asheville's underground arts and music.

Every April since 2009, the downtown has hosted HATCH Asheville, a creative arts and mentoring festival that brings in luminaries from around the world to discuss and showcase work in seven disciplines: architecture, design/technology, fashion, film, journalism, music and photography.

In 2010, Asheville added another festival that's putting the city on the musical map. Moogfest, held at the end of October, is a three-day affair that celebrates the legacy of electronic instrument inventor Bob Moog, who lived out his final decades in Asheville. In 2011, the festival featured more than 70 musical acts at half a dozen local venues.

Of course, traditional music also gets its due in Asheville. On Saturday nights throughout the summer, thousands of mountain-music fans gather for the Shindig on the Green. The outdoor event was founded back in 1930, as the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival, by legendary Appalachian song collector and folk historian Bascom Lamar Lunsford. Over the decades, the event has changed remarkably little: It's still one of the best ways to take in mountain music and dance performed by the young, old and everyone in between.

Asheville also has a vibrant literary culture that springs from deep roots. The great American novelist Thomas Wolfe was born and raised here, and other noted writers of his era, including O. Henry and F. Scott Fitzgerald, did some of their best work while staying in Asheville. The Thomas Wolfe Memorial, a state historic site in Wolfe's restored childhood home, hosts tours, readings and other events to celebrate his rich body of literature.

In recent years, Asheville has firmed up its reputation as a culinary center with a sizable and rapidly evolving food scene. They city has some 250 independent restaurants and 12 farmers markets. Livibility.com recently named Asheville one of the country's top-10 "surprisingly vibrant food cities," and the Huffington Post listed it among the top "undiscovered local food cities." The best of the city's culinary offerings is celebrated at events like the Asheville Independent Restaurant Association's Taste of Asheville, an annual gala featuring cuisine and spirits from dozens of area eateries, wineries and breweries.

Asheville has also emerged as a center of local, specialized food production, thanks in part to Blue Ridge Food Ventures, an 11,000-square-foot kitchen that's part of Asheville-Buncombe Technical College, which is home to a renowned culinary education program. With its cooking and food storage capacity, along with classes and marketing assistance, BRFV has helped scores of food entrepreneurs find a recipe for success.

If all that eating makes you thirsty, Asheville has the solution for that as well. The Biltmore Estate's Biltmore Winery is one of the largest in the area, and features both tours of the vineyards and an expansive tasting room. And then there's the local craft beer scene, which might be unparalleled. There are a whopping 10 craft breweries in Buncombe County, and their output is lauded by beer enthusiasts. In 2009, Imbibe magazine's readers voted Asheville the "best craft beer city in America," and for the last three years running, Asheville has won a national online poll for the coveted title of "Beer City USA."

Outdoors enthusiasts find no shortage of activities in Asheville, whether its hiking, biking and climbing in nearby mountains, paddling and fishing on the French Broad River and local lakes, careening through the trees on a zip line, or golfing at one of the area's renowned courses. Asheville is such a outdoors destination that in 2007 Outside magazine named it "best Southern town" for outdoor adventures. And of course, no survey of Asheville's outdoor offerings would be complete without a mention of the area's stunning leaf season. TripAdvisor.com recently named Asheville the best place in the nation to view fall foliage.

Asheville has placed great emphasis on preserving the natural environment, and the city's government has instituted substantial greenways and bikeways programs.

Science and education loom large in the community. The University of North Carolina at Asheville's 3,600 students participate in such projects as the local hub of the statewide Renaissance Computing Institute, or RENCI. RENCI's mission is to "bring the latest cyber tools and technologies to bear on pressing problems."

That mission is greatly advanced by academic collaborations with what might be called Asheville's "climate community." In fact, the city is home to the federal government's National Climatic Data Center, making it the nation's de facto headquarters for climate and weather research.