CHANGING COUTRYSIDES, CHANGING VILLAGES: SECOND HOMES IN RHODES, SOUTH AFRICA

Rural geographies have changed significantly over the past half century. These reconfigured geographies are increasingly denoted as evolving from a productivist to a post-productivist state and second home development has increasingly been implicated as contributing to such change. This paper considers this contention in the context of Rhodes, South Africa. It is argued that second home development is contributing towards an emerging post-productivist countryside. A broad analysis of the impact of second home ownership is given with reference to its economic influence. The paper concludes that coinciding with the post-productivist changes in the Rhodes countryside, second home ownership has contributed to employment creation and has had a varied tourism and regional impact which has added much needed support to the economy of the town.