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Alpine gentrification: The mountain village as a metropolitan neighbourhood

New inhabitants between landscape adulation and positional good
Manfred Perlik
Traduction(s) :
Gentrification alpine : Lorsque le village de montagne devient un arrondissement métropolitain [fr]

Résumés

Cet article aborde la transformation de régions de montagne en lieux de résidence remplaçant des secteurs économiques plus anciens (agriculture, industrie manufacturière, tourisme) dans les montagnes européennes. Il se place dans la perspective du développement régional et de son impact sur les ressources régionales fixes, le « capital territorial ». Cette nouvelle tendance affecte les montagnes européennes de deux manières, et participe à la formation de régions métropolitaines qui combinent centres métropolitains et environnements de loisirs fondés sur les attraits du paysage pour constituer de nouvelles entités intégrées. Au cours du processus, le paysage devient un bien de consommation nouveau et rare, qui joue un rôle dans l’accumulation du capital investi. L’article établit que les concepts d’esthétique du paysage et d’agréments ne suffisent pas à expliquer cette nouvelle dynamique, car ils méconnaissent les processus spatio-économiques ainsi que le rôle de la marchandisation du paysage pour les nouveaux résidents. Ces nouveaux résidents ont un profil plus « multilocal » que migrant. La multilocalité et l’usage sélectif des produits du paysage freinent le processus d’intégration, crucial pour entretenir et développer le capital territorial. On peut poser que la présence non permanente des nouveaux résidents risque d’affaiblir et non de renforcer les structures locales existantes. Il semble donc nécessaire de déployer des efforts particuliers auprès de chaque groupe de nouveaux résidents pour que de simples résidents à temps partiel deviennent des acteurs régionaux (au moins à temps partiel). De plus, le concept du développement régional centré sur les acteurs innovants doit être remis en question dans la mesure où l’aspect « consommation » domine le rapport du paysage.

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Texte intégral

A new breath for peripheral areas?

1This article intends to describe and interpret the recent spatio-economic processes in European mountainous regions with the objective of discussing two questions:

  1. What are the driving forces of the new phenomena of "multi-local dwelling" and "amenity-led migration"?

  2. What are their impacts on territorial capital?

2In the last decade the mountain states in the northwest of the United States covering the Rocky Mountains have gained a disproportional population growth. In Switzerland a shift along the Plateau Line is visible: the small industrial towns at the southern foot of the Jura lose significance while the municipalities at the foothills of the Alps gain population and jobs (Schuler/Perlik, 2011). At first sight, these developments seem to contradict the ongoing urbanisation caused by agglomeration advantages, which are actually dominating the spatial processes on a global level.

3Such processes were already described in the 1950s by the notion of amenities (Ullman, 1954). They have been conceptualized as amenity-led migration and interpreted as a change in values and preferences towards rural areas. As the decisive attributes of such migration count landscape qualities as quietness, near-nature environment, sunshine periods and spectacular views, the possibility for outdoor activities, as well as specific ethnic environments and foreign cultures (Moss, 2006). As facilitating socio-economic factors are noted (Stewart, 2002): generally increased mobility with a dissipation between work and a fixed working place living by several earnings from independent sources and places a societal shift in values and preferences towards amenities and the willingness to pay for them.

4The intangible values would lead to choosing residential places according to amenities instead of looking for the highest possible income, leading largely to a higher sensitivity to bio-physical (« natural ») and environmental issues.

  • 1 As a conceptually orientated paper this article does not contain new calculations. Its empirical ba (...)

5In the following I argue that this concept has some shortcomings. These shortcomings are due to two reasons: a certain neglect of the ongoing spatio-economic processes which are actually dominated by the economies of agglomeration (in the form of metropolisation) and a disregard of socio-cultural differentiation and lifestyle habitus which creates a specific form of gentrification by new preferences for semi-natural landscapes1.

Spatio-economic processes of metropolisation

The new appreciation of the mountains in the light of spatio-economic processes

6There are different possibilities to make use of mountainous areas. Traditionally, mountains like the Alps were settled to carry out agriculture or manufacturing, to territorialise the country or, later, to offer touristic services. Following this pattern, the analogue motive today would be to make a certain mountainous region the permanent and only centre of residence and to live there, working for a local, regional or even global market.

7Shrinking distances allow families to move from urban areas into mountainous regions while maintaining their workplace or school in the town linked by periodically, weekly or daily commuting. This enables them to maintain their social networks in the city. One can live in two worlds: the town has the agglomeration advantages; the mountains offer outdoor and leisure activities.

8Having several residences is the third possibility. This is called multi-locality (Weichhart, 2009). It heightens the transaction costs but multiplies the offer for profession, habitat and leisure. Only the first case can really be called "migration".

Migration

9The amenity concept does not differentiate between migration in the narrow sense (one residential place fixed) and periodical changes in the sense of a multi-local residence. This broad definition was always unsatisfactory, as was my attempt to solve this problem by different typologies (Perlik, 2006); it was also worth a debate at the Banff Conference 2008 (Moss et al., 2009). Meanwhile social geographic research has defined multi-locality as a distinct behaviour besides commuting and migration (Weichhart, 2009), which seems to be a practicable definition. Following this definition "amenity-led migration" would be restricted to those cases where people change their centre of everyday life for a constant period (maybe a rural region as well as, inversely, a big city). This means that people migrate without the reinsurance of the social network and the cultural capital of their previous life. Such a restriction would show the significance of the new migration flows. It would also allow the interpretation of whether it is a rural phenomenon or not to be estimated. There are still two unknowns: the actual definition of amenity-led migration includes retired people as well as active people. Whereas retired people may be more consumptive in their behaviour, active people have to look for earnings and are presumed to be active in the sense of innovation. The other unknown is the question of how long migrated persons and families stay in their new social environment. There are many studies (e.g. Nelson, 2006) showing that people leave the new place because their social networks failed.

10New in-migration to the Alps for integral working and living by young people lasted for a temporary limited period in the 1970s and 1980s (Guérin/Gumuchian, 1979, Mercier/Giovanni, 1983). Parallely, migrating to the Southern Alps or to the Mediterranean became a phenomenon of young retired people for residence only (Auzeby/Gouhinec, 2001) and then a process of ongoing periurbanisation (Fusco/Scarella, 2010 for the Cóte d’Azur).

11Migration (in the narrower sense) of active people towards the European mountains is actually not a main tendency. It can be proved by the development of people permanently living in the major European countries (e.g. Perlik, 2001 for the Alps, Schuler/Dessemontet et al., 2007 for Switzerland) and by the theoretical arguments of agglomeration advantages and evolutionary economics (Pumain, 1999). As migrants to the European mountains mostly maintain their homes in the towns (Bartoš et al., 2009 for the Czech Republic, Arnesen, 2009 for Norway), the phenomena characterised as "amenity-led migration" in Europe are often indeed processes of multi-local dwelling.

Far commuting

12The enlargement and acceleration of public transport enables people to work in the big perialpine metro-regions, dwell in a small town in the Alpine foothills and commute several times a week between these two places. This concerns especially the agglomerations of Munich, Berne and Zurich, whose commuter railways reach into the Alps; and Lyon, Geneva, Milan and Turin where the Alps are linked with the urban cores within an hour’s travel by car. The most important activities of everyday life, such as work, social and professional networks, culture and leisure, the development of lifestyles and high-value consumption goods, can be carried out in the city. This means that the centre of everyday life is defined as urban. The disadvantages of daily commuting may be compensated for by a larger dwelling area, a prestigious address and special outdoor activities. According to this, towns and municipalities along nearly the whole Alpine fringe have grown. Hereby special views of Mont Blanc (Dessemontet/Jarne/Schuler, 2009) or Lake Zurich have considerably increased the demand for and prices of constructible land. Also the Lake Geneva region has attracted new high-value-added economic sectors (like biotechnology) with highly qualified migrants from abroad. They work in the agglomeration and dwell in the mountains, both linked via commuting.

Multi-local dwelling

13Second homes are an old topic of regional research and spatial planning but mainly as a part of tourism. Its growth in attractive places in the mountains is still undiminished (Bartaletti, 2008). Now the perspective has changed. Such residences have become a part of dwelling and it is questionable whether traditional tourism with hotels and boarding houses can persist as a mountain-specific economy over the whole area (Bätzing/Lypp, 2009 for Austria). When asked for their motivation to reside in the mountains people highlight the qualities of nature, the beauty of the landscape, recreation, quietness and leisure. It is not very astonishing that people who claim ecologic values prefer more basic cabins than people with frankly declared hedonistic values who dwell in high-end second homes (Kaltenborn et al., 2008). Indeed second homes have become larger and larger. Flognfeldt (2004: 241) indicates an increase from 30–60m2 for Norwegian traditional cabins to 100–250m2 for second homes. There they are situated within a radius of 250–350 km from Oslo (Arnesen, 2009). Due to flexible working hours they are used regularly for long weekends but it is also possible to use them for work. Friends and relatives may use these homes; rarely are they rented (Bieger/Beritelli, 2004 for the Upper Engadine). The average use of second homes is 30–40 days/a; if they are also used by friends and relatives it is 50–60 days/a (ibid.).

14So what is basically new? The secondary residences have become fully fledged places for work, social networks and leisure. The clear separation between work, weekend leisure, multi-locality and migration has been abolished. Leisure residences now are no longer part of tourism but a new form of dwelling. In the 1990s it was possible to state the separation between the residential and the working municipality also in the mountainous regions (Bätzing/Messerli/Perlik, 1995). Now both functions are merged again but in periodically changing places. It is also a new finding that – unlike the title of many papers may suggest – dwelling in the mountains is not a tendency of rural life but an urban attitude in provenance and character.

Fig. 1+2. Lake Zurich with its periurban municipalities.

Fig. 1+2. Lake Zurich with its periurban municipalities.

Spectacular views and low taxes provide high returns on real-estate investment as the apartments attract a select clientele of inhabitants who are willing to pay a high price.

Fig. 3: The municipality of Wassen during the event for the 125th anniversary of the Gotthard railway route.

Fig. 3: The municipality of Wassen during the event for the 125th anniversary of the Gotthard railway route.

The permanent population is in steady decline. The old houses attract new inhabitants for seasonal dwelling.

The integrated metropolitan area: A combination of urban density and alpine playground

15Changed regimes of accumulation (the global division of labour) and changed modes of regulation (the gain in significance of the global as well as of the regional level at the expense of the national level) strengthen the agglomeration advantages. Small and medium-sized towns partly lose their "functional necessity" as towns (Pumain, 1999), while agglomerations with international emanation (metro-regions) attract the high-value-added economy and the most important decisive functions. To play this role, these decision centres need environs of premium residential sites, leisure and recreation places, whereby high quality is defined by a mixture of high-level consuming standards and uniqueness. Metropolises vs. parks and urban density vs. wilderness are only apparently contradictive. Social actors have the choice among a variety of multiple options and switching between different milieus. In both cases the city remains the centre of interest with its urban density and its possibilities for social interactions. This results in the enlargement of the cities' course of action. The classic scheme of centre–periphery is dissolved, as even spatially distant and sparsely populated mountainous regions may profit from the affluence of purchasing power and infrastructure based on a new (temporary) residential population. The leisure areas neither develop qualities of urban density nor become desolate, but the functional division causes a problematic uneven spatial development of different chances.

16What is new? The described processes allow us to distinguish two macro-tendencies of metropolisation: the enlargement of periurban habitats close to the mountains, inside the main Alpine valleys and even (tunneled under the summits) on the other side, and the functional integration of leisure landscapes into metro-regions that may be separated by rural areas but are linked by performance transport systems.

The socio-economic and cultural driving forces

The double function of nature

  • 2 One has to keep in mind that these needs also underlie highly dynamic change according to collectiv (...)

17The principal aspects linked with the term amenities like nature and the environment indicate a universality that only exists partially. However, the preferences for spectacular views and outdoor recreation depend on the prevailing values in wealthy societies, a fact that is also half of the truth. The imprecision obscures the fact that nature indeed comprehends two different qualities. On the one hand nature fulfils the bio-physical needs of humans: light, calmness, curiosity for novelties, absence of pollution, security2. On the other hand those basic needs have become commodities that have to be selected by preferences and have to be paid for in this or that way. In other words, for humans, nature has a double character that may be defined as a basic need for bio-physical well-being and an economic positional good (or symbolic capital) for the social distinction of individuals and classes.

18Both values are valid under conditions of commodity production and commodity exchange. They are valid at the same time but not each with the same significance. In their relationship both values create a certain rapport. It is obvious that this rapport is subject to temporal and spatial change.

The double function of the landscape

19The commodification of aesthetic landscapes was initiated by Petrarch's walk to the top of Mont Ventoux in 1336, the first documented ascent of an Alpine summit for reasons of free time, contemplation and the beauty of landscape. At the end of the nineteenth century sportive ascents of the Alpine summits by the first English tourists displayed the luxury of free time without any constraints to perform manual work. The Alps became the "playground of Europe". The Alps developed a double function: besides their integral component of production and reproduction they positioned these tourists in the upper classes of society at the turn of the century.

20The direct individual bio-physical benefit of near-nature landscapes for individuals becomes banal when the mentioned properties (light, air, climate etc.) are also available in densely built deindustrialised metropolises, due to the amelioration of the environmental qualities and due to better access to recreation areas. Contrarily, when profiled landscapes are rare and are perceived as aesthetically high, their property as a commodity and respectively as a positional good rises. Then, the appreciated landscape and the preferred "amenities" serve mainly as a means of distinction between social classes or individuals. Likewise, the dweller's multiple motives underlie this double logic: the direct material benefit of a landscape (use value) and its property as an exchangeable equivalent (exchange value). We can distinguish three major actors involved: new residents, real estate business and municipalities.

Motivations of new residents

21There are qualities with a universalistic character as their presence or lack affects well-being and health directly, like noise, polluted air etc. As long as pollution is within the accepted limits there is today no reason to migrate from the town to the countryside. Economically these qualities may be named as use values. On the contrary, there are qualities that by their scarcity become desirable objects: identity-sustaining townscapes or qualities that are new but not sufficient for all so that their possession is prestigious (e.g. habitats with lakeside views or spectacular distant panoramas). They gain their value from social interaction and function as exchange values or positional goods (symbolic capital in the terms of Bourdieu, 1979).

Motivations of investment and real-estate business

22There are also different motives on the offer side: on the one hand there are intermediary services existing since the early days of the division of labour. On the other hand the real-estate business underlies the classic mechanisms of valorization under the conditions of (global) overaccumulation (Harvey, 1982). It has to assure its justification on an open market by raising productivity, which means the realization of economies of scale as well as a careful assessment of locations before one invests. The French tourist resorts of the 1960s and 1970s already could only be financed with external capital. Since then, the dependency of external investment has even increased. According to this, real-estate enterprises working in attractive landscapes create investment products with a defined return on investment in the interest of the involved shareholders.

Motivations of municipalities and towns

23Municipalities and towns also have a double motivation. On the one hand municipalities develop with a collective aim to enable the existence of its population within the territory, supported by a regional or national state. This was named as the supply function of a town (Perlik, 2001). On the other hand towns and municipalities always made efforts to control trade, in- and out-migration, and power autonomously. In this sense they acted entrepreneurially and created external relations, which was called the network function (ibid.). Under the conditions of an exchanging, interacting commodity-based society, these two functions can also be named as use value and exchange value like the two functions of a commodity exchanged between firms or individuals. With the growing spatial division of labour (and the underlying regimes of accumulation) towns and especially metropolises strengthen their entrepreneurial character; the rapport between the two functions shifts from the use value (supply function) toward the exchange value (network function).

First conclusion: Metropolises and commodified landscapes – the same coin

24The concept of amenity-led migration has some weak points. First, it melts different groups of actors. Especially retirees and active people are in different situations of life and have different motivations which affect their impact on hosting regions considerably.

25Second, the migration aspect implies an attachment to the new mountain locations which gets more and more fuzzy by high accessibility and mobility. In Europe there are – at the moment – no major agglomeration disadvantages to flee from the city to mountainous regions; agglomeration advantages have not abated but increased. Multilocality becomes the prevailing model which means a direct marketing of the landscape without the detour of tourism. The result is the weakening of place specific production systems which the amenity concept tends to underestimate.

26Third, the concept looks at “landscape amenities” as a universalistic and static value which omits the aspects of changing perception, lifestyle and the double role of the commodity “landscape”. Amenities cannot be objectified and thereby reduced on “beautiful” landscapes – every action done by an individual aims to gain a certain “amenity”. There has been a large debate whether jobs or nature would entail migration processes, lastly by Partridge (2010) who argues based on his empirics that the intangible environmental quality and not the tangible job opportunities would determine the mobility towards the mountainous and rural regions. Using the materialistic view of a double function of landscapes, the “aesthetics of nature” is not maintainable as an own intrinsic value but derived from social interaction.

  • 3 One of these practices is commuting by airplane (Rasker et al., 2009 for the American West, Geoffro (...)
  • 4 It does not matter whether the local population is displaced or not. At least, when old local econo (...)

27Fourth, the discourse is often focused on the migrants’ supposed search for the rural. This hides the urban character of the phenomenon. The new mobilities (“lifestyle mobilities”, McIntyre, 2009) are embedded in an urban context, are practiced by prosperous urban middle classes and they are phenomena of globalization (Woods, 2009). Unlike Cadieux (2009) and others I avoid the term exurbanisation or categories like counterurbanisation and rurbanisation. Exurbanisation implies to give up urban practices, behaviour and economies. But the new mobilities are not a “counter”-model from the urban to the rural. More, they are an amplification of the urban to a metropolitan driven regime of accumulation which deploys new perceptions, practices and new valorizations3. The discovery of new locations for a temporary or permanent residence by trend-sensitive middle classes turns former peripheral regions into a gentrified neighborhood of the town. In the case of mountain dwelling we can speak of Alpine gentrification4.

28To conclude, as overall label amenity-led-migration hides more than it elucidates. It cannot cover the manifold aspects of global mobility, lifestyle, spatial and socio-economic processes. Attempts in the past for a more precise notion have failed. This means that in the scientific debate the variety of the established nomenclature will persist, according to the needs of a specific discipline where each researcher has to decide which brand he/she will use in the own research field.

The impacts on the “territorial capital"

29Under the aspects of spatial and regional development it is interesting how the new (part-time) residents affect the two main targets of the European Union: competitiveness and territorial cohesion (EC/CE, 2007). It is assumed that regions have a territorial capital (OECD/OCDE, 2001). Territorial capital is understood as a set of localized assets – natural, human, artistic, organizational, relational and cognitive – which found the competitive potential of a given territory (Camagni/Capello, 2010). Territorial capital comprehends the historic development path with its particular chances and also its restrictions, which have impressed the relations, interactions and practices between social actors. Mountainous regions have accumulated a huge territorial capital by their specific path, which can only be valorised by regional embeddedness. If this valorisation should be developed as a particular chance for sparsely populated regions the impact of multi-local dwelling has to be quested.

30New residents, even if only temporarily present, pay taxes, ask for services and consume local products. In this regard the expectations seem to be real. If the costs of infrastructure may be imposed on the new inhabitants, the municipality will be financially wealthy. Much harder to estimate is how the new residents may be incorporated into the communal tissue and participate in municipal responsibility. This is a problem in all small municipalities and may be aggravated by the loss of the autochthone population and by newcomers being present only part-time. In the same direction argues Van Auken (2010) with the examples of North America and Norway.

31The impacts of multi-locals’ social capital are difficult to be estimated and would need their own case studies. However it is possible to show the impacts indirectly by the development of the population and jobs. The municipal data of Switzerland prove that metropolisation and economic structural change run at the expense of rural and mountainous areas. After a 20-year-long period of dispersion of services into these regions during the 1970s and 1980s (banks, retailing), a re-concentration process is now visible since the mid1990s (Schuler/Perlik/Pasche 2004, Schuler/Perlik, 2011). In addition to this, new data (SAB, 2010) show that this situation has even aggravated with a supplementary differentiation within the Swiss periphery:

  1. those with successful manufacturing and tourist production systems gain residents and jobs (Jura, touristic Alps);

  2. the regions with easy access but that are economically weak gain residents and lose jobs (Ticino)

  3. the rural periphery (Lucerne/Bernese Emmental, Italian-speaking Grisons) loses inhabitants and jobs.

32This recent development accentuates the processes already observed in the 1990s (Bätzing/Messerli/Perlik, 1995).

Conclusions and outlook

33The described spatio-economic dynamics integrate functionally the mountainous regions into the perialpine metro-regions as "outposts" of urban neighbourhoods. This new process of Alpine gentrification blurs the traditional scheme of centre–periphery. Because of the consumptive character of multi-locality three major problems arise:

  1. The specific value adding of real-estate business is higher than that of the tourism sector. A displacement of the tourist cluster would degrade the existing territorial capital.

  2. The new spatial and functional division between metropolitan cores of decision and the mountains as regions of reproduction amplifies the existing disparities. It generates a cleavage of reputation and uneven chances between metropolitan cores and residential regions.

  3. The selective use of mountainous areas for mere leisure and residential functions doubles the overall consumption of space for habitats and transport systems. It consumes energy and mobility resources. By the way it undercuts the planning guidelines to avoid urban sprawl.

34As mountainous regions in general lack agglomeration advantages, they should keep their best-adapted regional production systems – maybe agriculture, manufacturing or tourism – if ever possible, otherwise their territorial capital will be devaluated. This counts for example for the tourism that once in the mountains was an opportunity for all and is now concentrated mainly in resort towns; it has developed over more than 100 years. The residential economy with its selective use of the most attractive sites does not have the time for long adaptation and is rather more moveable than the economies of the past. The mountainous regions risk to losing their old production systems without gaining adequate new ones for long. Considering the tendencies claimed by NGOs, scientists and politicians to treat the world's mountains as a global common good in ecological issues (Debarbieux/Price, 2008) one can state that in the case of economic functions, land use and public infrastructure the mountain areas run in the inverse direction of individual appropriation.

Outlook: How to embed the multi-locals and keep their loyalty?

35To enhance territorial capital the question to be posed is not "How to attract more residents?" but "How to attract regional actors?" Regions have to search for possibilities and strategies to attach the new (part-time) residents to their chosen region and to motivate them to deploy their skills and networks in the mountains’ interest. Under the conditions of rising volatility this is difficult. It would be ideal if mountainous areas could develop their own forms of urban development, by which they could break with the polarising dichotomy of a productive metropolis and a consumptive leisure landscape. It will be crucial for the mountainous regions whether they can integrate and attach new migrants (who move with a permanent perspective), and if so, for how long. And it will be important if these, in case they leave anyhow, will behave in their new place as goodwill ambassadors or as disappointed by their rural experience.

36In the case of the multi-locals it will be crucial whether the lifelong inhabitants will accept the temporary ones and make their external knowledge and skills fruitful for the regional development. This concerns active people who can heighten the local value adding by commercial activities. However, this potential is probably rather limited as these people have high transaction costs from high mobility and certainly no free time to spend. Perhaps it is more auspicious to exploit the special skills of retired people and to develop new models of associative and voluntary work. The social and human capital that can be won from this might be higher than the formal value adding by taxes and dues. If it is possible to keep quitting people in the form of an everlasting network the territorial capital might be used and evolve. Thereby mountainous regions could maintain even diversified production systems.

37These strategies are in line with new regional policies that set their focus on innovative regions developing unique selling positions. Their recommendations stress the means of devolution and are mainly market-driven. As mentioned, the selective consumption of landscape commodities by multi-local dwelling competes with the existing economic sectors. This lowers the reach of the actor-based approach. Often the local networks are too weak to be innovative. New policy solutions to keep and to enhance the territorial capital have to consider that the actor-based model is not enough and that the actual spatial division of labour has to be put into question more generally.

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Notes

1 As a conceptually orientated paper this article does not contain new calculations. Its empirical basis is constituted by demographic, employment and commuter data on municipal level (LAU 2) over a longer period in Switzerland, France, Italy, Austria, Liechtenstein, Slovenia and Germany (Bätzing/Messerli/Perlik, 1995; Perlik, 2001; Schuler/Perlik/Pasche, 2004; Schuler/Perlik, 2011). Although it is mainly based on the European Alps, it should be possible to generalize the main statements as the driving forces are global.

2 One has to keep in mind that these needs also underlie highly dynamic change according to collective knowledge, technological progress, the wealth of society and mainstreaming.

3 One of these practices is commuting by airplane (Rasker et al., 2009 for the American West, Geoffroy, 2005 for Chamonix). Of course, there is a broad range of behavior and one will find also near Domodossola (Italian Alps) the rural Waldenesque communities (mentioned also by Peter Walker, 2009) – as well as the second homes of Milanese businessmen.

4 It does not matter whether the local population is displaced or not. At least, when old local economies are weakened in favor of new ones, the rural village community vanishes. And sometimes the ancestral population indeed has to move when surface prices rise; the examples cover the globe, from the Swiss Zug (NZZ, 11.12.2010) and Andermatt (Eggerschwiler/Egli/Peter, 2010) via Nice (Fusco/Scarella, 2010) to Santa Fe/New Mexico (Glorioso/Moss, 2006).

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Table des illustrations

Titre Fig. 1+2. Lake Zurich with its periurban municipalities.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/rga/docannexe/image/1370/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 848k
Légende Spectacular views and low taxes provide high returns on real-estate investment as the apartments attract a select clientele of inhabitants who are willing to pay a high price.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/rga/docannexe/image/1370/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 440k
Titre Fig. 3: The municipality of Wassen during the event for the 125th anniversary of the Gotthard railway route.
Légende The permanent population is in steady decline. The old houses attract new inhabitants for seasonal dwelling.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/rga/docannexe/image/1370/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 1,3M
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Manfred Perlik, « Alpine gentrification: The mountain village as a metropolitan neighbourhood »Journal of Alpine Research | Revue de géographie alpine [En ligne], 99-1 | 2011, mis en ligne le 28 avril 2011, consulté le 19 mars 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/rga/1370 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/rga.1370

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Manfred Perlik

ETH Zurich, NSL-IRL-Planning of Landscape and Urban Systems (PLUS), perlik@nsl.ethz.ch

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