Perceived place-identity impacts of the tourism industry on local community are identified and examined using a mixed-qualitative method study in the cases of Asheville, North Carolina and Greenville, South Carolina. There are organizations and individuals in both Asheville and Greenville advocating for an expansion of the urban tourism, and others advocating to keep the economies and consumption local. Asheville’s Tourism Development Agency faced more resistance from locals than Greenville given the quantity of resources the agencies have. In 2018, Asheville’s Tourism Development Agency controlled $6.4 million dollars in tax revenue. Greenville’s Tourism Development Agency is much smaller and handles less revenue. Despite resistance in Asheville, leading companies in the tourism industry have persisted in development. Actor-Network Theory and a place-identity framework were applied to the existing systems. The analysis shows that there is misalignment in the sense-of-place conveyed by the actors in the system including the tourists, residents, local government, and tourism professionals in both cities. Additionally, urban tourism has increased the level of social inequality, displacement of locals, discrimination in political voice, and land use disputes. Actor-Network theory brings light to the interactions between human and non-human actors within the system to gauge the equality of the interactions. In the case of Asheville, the state government regulates many of the other actors. The purpose of this study is to define how sustainable the tourism system in each city is by determining who benefits from tourism and who is unhappy with the effects tourism has had on the place-identity of the city. The tourism industries in Asheville and Greenville both must slow the rate of development to allow for a more sustainable outcome that is promoted by all actors, specifically the community members.