Second Homes in the Auvergne

Abstract

IMPORTANT changes in rural parts of the Western world have resulted from city-dwellers establishing second homes for weekend and vacation use. These vacation homes merit study for several reasons. First, by their good upkeep or newness of construction they stand out as distinctive elements in rural landscapes. However, their decoration or style of building may spoil apparently natural landscapes and reduce their attractiveness for all but other second-home occupiers. Then, second homes bring inflows of population for holidays and weekends to areas that may be enumerated in the census as depopulated. This phenomenon may be viewed as a process of temporary or seasonal suburbanization. Third, important social and economic implications arise from the juxtaposition of rural and urban dwellers, even if for only short periods of time. It could be argued that such contacts promote favorable results and encourage the country dweller to adopt urban life-styles and thus to improve both his material and cultural lot in the countryside. On the other hand, such contacts might be detrimental to the stability of the rural population and would introduce the countryman to aspirations that can be satisfied only by migration to urban areas. Fourth, important planning implications result from the physical presence of second homes and the social presence of their occupants. The establishment of second homes for recreational use involves the acquisition of land and buildings that might be required in the future for incorporation in local schemes for farm-enlargement, plot-consolidation, or other aspects of agricultural improvement. In addition, the social feedback caused by the presence of second-home occupants must be considered in planning for population change in the countryside. Finally, the second-home phenomenon provides a neat inversion of spatial preferences in modern society, whereby city dwellers choose to live on weekends and vacations in environments that are often considered unattractive by countryfolk and that are being abandoned by them as rural-urban migration intensifies. Studies of second homes have been undertaken in many parts of the