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The Making And Unmaking Of An Appalachian “Home”: Tensions Between Tourism And Housing Development In Gatlinburg, Tennessee, J. Hope Amason

Anthropology and Museum Studies Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the economic and symbolic dimensions of redevelopment in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. I focus on one particular project, the East Parkway at Baskins Creek Bypass District, which concerned ten acres that contained a vital housing resource for low-income tourism-industry workers: residential motels. I connect Gatlinburg’s housing crisis with changing labor patterns in the wake of economic restructuring. I present two letters submitted by real estate developers and solicited by the City of Gatlinburg. In analyzing the letters, I identify two tensions: (1) between workers’ homes and the aesthetics of “Appalachian” tourism, and (2) between representations of workers and the …