Nelson has earned a reputation as a cultural centre. The downtown area is packed with good restaurants, cafes, coffee houses, local shops, small art galleries, the restored Capitol Theatre (a regional hub for the performing arts) and impromptu theatre venues. The city is about forty-five minutes away from the site of the annual Shambhala Music Festival, an internationally known artistic music festival held in August at the Salmo River Ranch. It is also home to the White-water Ski Resort and the Nelson Brewing Company (a regional microbrewery).
As with many communities in British Columbia, Nelson experienced a real-estate boom. In the early 2000s, real-estate prices skyrocketed, putting ownership out of reach for less affluent residents. Nelsonites are proud of their community's "small town" feel, which has remained relatively free of the chain stores, franchises and strip-mall developments that are common in other towns of similar size. There has been a push for residents to buy from local businesses, as opposed to supporting large corporations.
For its geographic scale, the Central Kootenay region (in which Nelson is situated) has an uncommonly high number of organic farms, market gardens, and home gardens. Many Nelson residents grow decorative or food gardens (or both). The town has several outlets for natural foods, including a year-round co-op market.
Nelson is also an alternative lifestyles hot spot noted for its profitable (albeit unlawful) marijuana production, with The Guardian reporting that "Nelson was able to make the transition from a typical rural lumber town into a thriving arts and mountain sports hotbed, due in part to the wealth generated by marijuana growers. If one were to have spent the last three years in this idyllic mountain hamlet, the economic crisis would have been barely noticeable." Hemp clothes and cannabis-related products are sold in local
