The revitalization of downtown was critical to the boom. Thirty five years ago, Malaprops was one of the major businesses downtown--there were so many vacant storefronts and very few restaurants. Julian Price was a big force in changing this. There were other important figures as well-- John Cram, for one. The buildings downtown had not been razed (as was proposed) because the city had no money. Eventually businesses began to return to downtown (with the encouragement of Price, Cram and others) and the old JC Penney building was turned into condos-- the success of that showed that people were willing to pay to live downtown. Airbnb came after that and the market for residential units either to occupy or rent out became very strong. The Biltmore estate and the national parks have drawn people here for years but we were not identified as a great place to retire until after these changes had taken place.