ABSTRACT
This chapter considers second home growth from the perspective of local rural areas. It focuses on the nature of rural change at the local level, by examining five European regions. All five regions, West Sweden, Savo in Finland, Galicia in Northern Spain, the Scottish Highlands, and Gwynedd in North Wales, have experienced rapid second home growth. The chapter presents each case study analysis with a description of the region by identifying the geographical, economic and environmental context to the rural areas. Regions in each of the five areas are experiencing serious agricultural deprivation and decline of rural services as a consequence of a narrowing of economic bases and opportunities. In many of the areas, out-migration of young people and in-migration by retired or semi-retired urbanites has transfigured rural communities into becoming centres of “residential tourism”. The tourism solution to local rural economic decline has often resulted in a deepening in the rural problem in different ways, socially, culturally and linguistically.
