Understanding and Managing Amenity-led Migration in Mountain Regions

[i]Conference[/i] May 15-19, 2008 Mountain Culture, The Banff Centre Banff, Alberta, Canada Mountain areas worldwide are accustomed to welcoming visitors who come to enjoy the lifestyle amenities that such places have to offer. They enjoy the mountains’ natural beauty, recreational opportunities, unique cultures, and return to their homes enriched by their mountain experiences. But what happens when visitors and others, some attracted primarily by new economic activity, come to stay? What happens when they choose to build their dream homes in high amenity mountain communities? These visitors-turned-residents, and other amenity-led migrants, may bring new and different expectations, economic and political clout, educational background and community values to their adopted home towns, as well as increasing pressures on fragile mountain environments. Mountain communities can find themselves struggling to manage an accelerating pace and magnitude of economic, social and environmental change. Communities may find conflict developing between rural values and urban values, full-time residents and weekenders, “old-timers” and “in-comers”. Understanding and Managing Amenity-Led Migration in Mountain Regions is designed to bring together the current state of knowledge about mountain amenity migration, to gather existing and proposed ideas and strategies for its planning and management and to draft guidelines that will help mountain communities manage for sustainability the changes this phenomenon brings. Concerned citizens, land managers, community administrators and political representatives will discover common ground for developing positive solutions. Conference objectives: Objective 1 Summarize current research on mountain amenity-led migration. Especially research that helps us to: better understand its societal driving forces; clarify the relationship among amenity migration, second home ownership, tourism, and urban growth and development; better understand the values and behaviour of amenity migrants; and identify gaps in this knowledge base. Objective 2 Share existing and proposed strategies, policies, methods and tools for managing (and planning for) amenity migration in mountain regions. Use current case studies and other descriptions from a range of affected mountain communities. Objective 3 Create guidelines for the effective planning and management of amenity-led migration in mountain regions. Visit the official site: http://www.banffcentre.ca/mountainculture/mtnconferences/am/default.asp