Moving to the Mountains: Amenity Migration in the Sierra and Southern Appalachian Mountains

Two of the rural regions currently undergoing dramatic landscape change are the Sierra Nevadas, John Muir’s “Range of Light,” and the Blue Ridge Mountains, described by John Denver in his song “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” These are mythical landscapes, the Sierras of television’s “Bonanza” and the Blue Ridge Mountains of Mount Airy, North Carolina, television’s “Mayberry.” These are landscapes on opposite sites of the USA yet undergoing similar transformations.

The Sierra Nevada is a 400-mile-long stretch of extraordinary beauty and landscape diversity. Approximately two thirds of the bird and mammal species and one half of all the reptile and amphibian species in California are found here. The world’s largest living plants, the Giant Sequoia, are found there, as is the tenth deepest freshwater lake in the world, Lake Tahoe. Almost two thirds of the range (12.6 million acres) is publicly owned and lies in three national parks – Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon – nine national forests, and the lands of the Bureau of Land Management. The remaining one third is privately owned. These are some of the most heavily used public lands in the country. Yosemite National Park alone attracts 4 million visitors a year (The Wilderness Society 2004, 1).