Bumper to bumper crop: Can mountain communities survive their popularity?

    The sage of malapropism, Yogi Berra, once said of a popular restaurant, that, "No one goes there anymore.  It's too crowded."  In some ways, the mountain communities of western North Carolina are the inverse of that proposition.  Everyone goes there because it isn't crowded.
    Well, that could end soon.  In some ways, North Carolina is the new Florida.
    It is hard for many of us under the age of 50 to remember that in our lifetimes, the over-burdened coastal cities of Florida were un-crowded and real estate there was cheap.  Some homes near the ocean were within reach of the middle class as recently as the 1970s.  Inland burgs like Orlando were virtually one-horse towns.  But in just a few decades, the secrets of a warm climate and cheap and available land were revealed.  Friends moved to Florida to join friends, and people looking for a change of career and a new life moved south to provide services for the burgeoning populations there.  The land rush was on.
    Today, North Carolina is experiencing a similar migration.  One of the drivers is climate, but certainly not the winter climate in the Carolina mountains as temperatures can drop below freezing on some days and snow is not rare.  For years a second-home magnet for Floridians tired of the oppressive summer heat, today the North Carolina mountains are attracting more and more Floridians, some choosing it for year-round living. I heard it from local real estate agents and saw it on the Sunshine State license plates that dotted my long and winding drive from Brevard to Tuckasegee last week.
    It left me wondering if all these migrants are trading one traffic problem for another.  Florida, of course, is well known for clogged roads, made worse by septuagenarian drivers taking it very slow on their way to the 5 p.m. smorgasbords.  Carolina mountain roads are essentially two-lane affairs, with many hairpin turns that would do Le Mans proud, and little ability for miles on end to pass slower vehicles.  Yet I drove stretches of road, especially between Lake Toxaway and Cashiers, and passed some good-sized communities flanking both sides of the road.  The mountains are breathtaking but how much patience would I have, I wondered, to sit behind a slow line of cars just to get to a good restaurant four or five miles outside my gate?
    Moreover, and unlike Florida, generally there is no room to expand these mountain roads; the two lanes were originally blasted through rock into the sides of mountains and it is hard to envision anywhere to put more asphalt.  Of course, through the marvels of engineering, anything may be possible, at a price.
    One local real estate agent told me that a moratorium on building new developments was one local county's response to the population increase and the increased burdens on local infrastructure, such as the roads.  That may be what it takes to keep North Carolina from turning into Florida.  In the meantime, the guidance here, as always, is to rent before you buy, especially in an area where traffic could scar an otherwise beautiful landscape.