Rural regions across Norway and the wider Western world are undergoing profound structural transformation linked to deindustrialisation, globalisation, changing mobility patterns and demographic decline.
These dynamics have intensified regional inequalities and constrained the capacity of many rural areas to sustain employment, retain population, and foster new development trajectories.
"Against this backdrop, second home development has gained prominence as a strategy for rural restructuring, particularly in the mountain regions of Southern Norway, yet its actual contributions to regional development dynamics remain contested and insufficiently understood," says Merethe Lerfald.
Drawing on second-home literature and perspectives from economic geography, Lerfald argues that her thesis makes three key contributions.
First, it shows that dense, clustered second-home development generates expanded opportunity space that attracts diverse actors. Second, it shows that municipalities play a central role in ensuring predictability and setting the framework for development. Third, it develops a new conceptual model that shows that second-homes can create more contact between people, but also how these effects are often limited.
Merethe Lerfald has been associated with the PhD programme Innovation in Services in the Public and Private Sectors. Her thesis is titled: "Agency patterns and actor composition in rural second-home development".
The main findings of the PhD thesis:
- Dense, clustered second-home development generates expanded opportunity space that attracts diverse actors, challenging binary distinctions between endogenous and exogenous development.
- These opportunity spaces are collectively shaped across multiple actors and scales through place-based leadership, with municipalities playing a pivotal role in ensuring predictability and framing development trajectories.
- Develops a conceptual model for assessing the impact of recurring temporary second-home populations on community capital and refines the notion of displaced buzz, showing that while dense, clustered second-home developments create potential for interaction, their developmental effects are often constrained by weak institutional embeddedness beyond the second home itself.