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 employment there. People who migrate to the study areas (Lake Tahoe region and Mammoth Lakes area) tend to be white, well-educated, with considerable household earnings, but do not fall into the senior citizen category. There is no doubt that their demand for vacation or permanent homes has increased housing prices enormously. Planning problems that tend to come with settlement expansion in high mountain regions represent a certain potential for conflict between people who have been living here for a long period (more than 15 years) and recent, affluent amenity migrants (“newcomers”). So does the fact that a majority of homes have meanwhile been priced well beyond the reach of people on local salaries. Finally, the study addresses the problem of various attitudes towards planning strategies in the Sierra Nevada.
