Cottage Country in Transition: A Social Geography of Change and Contention in the Rural-Recreational Countryside

Using the Rideau Lakes region of eastern Ontario and the Cultus Lake area of southwestern British Columbia as case studies, Greg Halseth examines the ways in which economic, political, and social power affect community change. He focuses on specific issues, such as residential change, land use planning, property taxation, and social organization. Moving beyond empirical research, Halseth sets the changes occurring in these communities within a broader intellectual context of "community power" and "commodification of the rural idyll." He pays particular attention to how general processes and pressures work themselves out in particular places. Written in an accessible style, Cottage Country in Transition will be of great interest to rural geographers, planners, sociologists, and community researchers as well as to rural residents and cottage owners.