Counterurbanization and its socioeconomic effects in high mountain areas of the Sierra Nevada (California/Nevada)

Resettlement of peripheral areas (“counterurbanisation”) is driving population growth in the central Sierra Nevada of California and Nevada. The present study analyses the impact of “urban refugees” on socio-economic conditions in rural high mountain regions (above 1,800 m). From 1960 onward, the High Sierra counties have ranked among Californian high mountain regions with the heaviest relative population growth. Tourism provides the most important impulse for the diffusion of metropolitan populations to high altitude areas, and constitutes the major source of..