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.

Greg Halseth is professor of geography and Canada Research Chair in Rural and Small Town Studies at the University of Northern British Columbia.Sean Markey is associate professor in the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University.Laura Ryser is research manager in the Rural and Small Town Studies Program at the University of Northern British Columbia.Don Manson is a community-based researcher and educator working with the communities and people of northern British Columbia.

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"Cottage Country in Transition is exemplary. It tells us a great deal about the rural-recreational countryside and is comparable with much of the best rural social work of the past. The central strength of the book is in its linking of descriptive categorization of socio-economic status with the dynamics of migration, life cycle, and cultural meaning." Gerry Walker, Department of Geography, York University