Beach Space Research Articles

제주 해변 공간 어메니티 인식에 따른 군집 별 관광 활동 연구

Purpose The purpose of this study is to understand the amenity perceptions and tourism activities of beach space users and draw implications for tourism activities in beach spaces.
 Methods Sample data were collected through a questionnaire based on amenity perception factors and tourism activity types derived through theoretical review. Empirical analysis was conducted through cluster analysis and importance-performance analysis on the sample data.
 Results It was confirmed that beach space users can be subdivided into high-awareness, low-awareness, moderate-awareness, and partially-awareness groups according to differences in amenity perception. In addition, through the importance-performance analysis, it was confirmed that the natural landscape viewing type and shopping/restaurant type are activity types with both high performance and high importance, the leisure sports type and humanistic landscape viewing type are activity types with both low performance and low importance, and the experience type is an activity type with high performance but low importance. Finally, through the importance-performance analysis by cluster, it was found that the importance and performance of tourist activity types of beach space users differed according to the level of amenity perception, and there were significant differences by cluster, especially for leisure sports and experience types.
 Conclusion While existing policy and technical considerations are important for understanding beach tourism, it is necessary to understand tourists' amenity perceptions alongside these considerations. Therefore, it is necessary to actively utilize these amenity perceptions in beach tourism development.

Geo-History Notes for the Study of Production of the Beach Space in Northeastern, Brazil

The present work aims to present some geohistorical notes about the production of beach space in Northeast Brazil, based on bibliographic research. The Brazilian beach space results from different social practices, some of which emerged through the absorption of behaviors and lifestyles arising from modern westerns. The social appropriation of beaches on the coast of the Northeast took place in the mid-19th century, when local elites turned to the sea, in the context of the incorporation of the so-called "modern maritime practices" (therapeutic baths, vacations, etc.), colonizing an environment previously intended only for “traditional maritime practices” (fishing, defense, and port activity). The transformation and consumption of these spaces were based on the establishment of second homes and infrastructure aimed at the development of tourist activity. In the first part of this article, we characterize the environment and socially on the Northeastern coast, in order to demonstrate the predominance of the beach environment and its social and economic value. Then we seek to discuss the production of beach space in the Northeast, pointing out the geohistorical factors linked to its valorization. Finally, we briefly present the process of production of beach space in a large northeastern city, Recife, highlighting the historical process of appropriation and valorization of its beaches.

Shipwrecked: Coastal Disasters and the Making of the American Beach by Jamin Wells

Today, America’s east coast teems with people each summer, and oceanfront property demands top dollar. As Wells shows in this book, such was not always the case. Until the mid-nineteenth century, America’s east coast was uninhabited, remote, and generally avoided by people. Wells argues that this “coastal frontier” transformed into the “modern beach” within a single generation because of shipwrecks (2). These coastal disasters disrupted the “physical, social, and cultural world,” acting as a catalyzing force that first rationalized and later popularized the beach (34).American coasts were largely isolated or uninhabited spaces until the turn of the nineteenth century. Shipwreck survivors lucky enough to wash ashore often froze to death before help arrived. Investment from the American federal government served as the impetus for initial growth on beaches. Given that approximately 90 percent of federal revenue came from customs duties, the young federal government became heavily invested in protecting foreign commerce. Shipwrecked highlights the importance of improving navigational safety to the young U.S. government, which built lighthouses and organized coastal communities under the watchful eye of “wreckmasters” who patrolled beaches, rescued ships, and distributed funds to assistants and information to insurance companies.As shipping and ships changed in the nineteenth century, so did beach communities. Shipping grew with America’s economy and population, and shipwrecks peaked between 1860 and 1890. To mitigate the loss of life and property, the federal government financed the construction of shelters where people and equipment were available to respond to shipwrecks, culminating in the creation of the United States Life-Saving Service in 1878. According to Wells, these government programs stationed people on the beach and provided the infrastructure for beach tourism. People congregated to observe “shipwreck spectacles” from shore, as well as the heroic men rushing toward the beleaguered crews (8).The capitalist transformation of the United States even extended to the beach. Meticulous surveys to prevent shipwrecks rendered beach spaces legible for the state and for capital. Iron-hulled steamships carried ever-larger loads and were more valuable than their cargo, increasing the incentive to recover them. A capital-intensive “Industrial Corporate Wrecking Complex” emerged in the late nineteenth century (106). Salvage equipment became much more sophisticated, technical, and expensive, wresting control of the salvage industry from locals to a limited number of specialized professional outfits. Like necromancers, these companies summoned sunken ships to the surface with cranes and the iconic diving suits that now ornamentally grace fish tanks or restaurant walls. When the number of shipwrecks declined in the twentieth century, a thriving beach tourism industry had replaced them on the coast in both size and importance.Throughout the book Wells analyzes the place that shipwrecks and the beach held in American culture. Interest in beaches increased as people sought to escape the nation’s crowded industrial cities for picturesque natural settings. Crowds rushed to shipwreck sites in order to witness the salvage and rescue operations. Shipwrecks appealed to Progressive Era Americans because they “combined the fear of seeing the pinnacle of modern technology destroyed with the hope of seeing it saved” (153). Coastal salvors were like eastern cowboys, exemplifying the rugged masculine traits of the vigorous life, as celebrated during that era. Ironically, the popularity of dramatic coastal scenes peaked in literature and art as the phenomenon itself declined during the 1890s.Shipwrecked succeeds in bringing attention to a unique and overlooked form of disaster. It strains, however, to make its argument that shipwrecks created the modern beach. Improvements in transportation, explosive population growth, and Western culture’s rapprochement with beaches all seem to play at least equally important roles in the development of the coast. For example, Wells does not develop his claim that locals involved in ship salvage were often the first to open beach resorts. Nor does he make a convincing case that beach tourism in places like New Jersey depended on shipwrecks; shipwrecks were probably more a contributing factor than a causal one. In sum, the book succeeds as a study of shipwrecks themselves and their interesting and important place in the nineteenth-century American economy and consciousness.

Striving for a new normal after the Covid-19 pandemic: taking small businesses at Bangsaen Beach as an example

ABSTRACT The Covid-19 pandemic interrupted Bangsaen Beach activities and disturbed livelihoods of small business operators. Before the pandemic, Bangsaen tourism experienced issues of beach quality degradation due to overcrowding, competitive vending, and lack of diversification. After the pandemic, the municipality imposed new regulations, reset zones to safeguard the public health, and jump-started the economy. The changing regulations created conflicts with vendors on zoning rearrangements and reduced sales. The author conducted a survey to investigate the beach activities, the local small business operations, and the local authority’s regulation changes. The survey results indicated that Bangsaen needs alternative attractions to complement its beach activities and to help cope with traffic congestion. The results also find out the social disparity in the demography of the vendors, which calls for attention to gender aspects and inclusive facets in the social infrastructure development strategy. This study suggests that vendors collaborate collectively with the local government to challenge the appropriation of beach spaces and to create innovative tactics. In addition, destination management organizations need to strive for better collaboration with small business operators to help them adapt to the change and enter the formal economy.

Childhood hazard encounters at Australian beaches and their influence on attachment behaviours in adulthood

In‐depth interviews with beach users indicate that early memories of the Australian beach space underpin pleasures derived from re‐experiencing childhood hazard encounters. The importance of reliving remembered affects is demonstrated to underpin place attachment and identity. Experiences of the sublime in nature also work to enamour beachgoers to revisit beaches despite early encounters with hazards that, in other environments, might allay re‐use. Narrative analysis and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) of beachgoer narratives combined with psychoanalytic geographies unpack the influence of experience on behaviour and how individuals perceived and made sense of childhood beach encounters in their adult lives.

Da incorporação dos banhos salgados de mar à balnearização das praias do Recife: um “período denso” na produção do espaço praiano

Segundo o geógrafo Pedro de Almeida Vasconcelos, os períodos densos correspondem a momentos de grande intensidade, em que ocorrem acontecimentos transformadores para uma cidade ou um espaço qualquer. A tese defendida neste artigo é a de que o intervalo entre a segunda metade do século XIX e a primeira metade do século XX, marcada, entre outras coisas, pela introdução do hábito social dos banhos salgados de mar e a consequente “balnearização” das praias, constitui um período denso para a produção do espaço praiano do Recife.
 
 Abstract
 
 SINCE THE INCORPORATION OF SEA SALTED BATHS TO THE SEASIDE URBANIZATION IN RECIFE: A “DENSE PERIOD” IN BEACH SPACE PRODUCTION
 
 According to geographer Pedro de Almeida Vasconcelos, the dense periods correspond to moments of too much intensity, which occur transformative events for a city or any space. The thesis defended in this article is that the interval between the second half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, marked, among other things, by the introduction of the social habit of salty sea baths and the consequent seaside urbanization, constitutes a dense period for the Recife beach space production.

Effects on general health associated with beach proximity in Barcelona (Spain).

Health benefits of blue spaces have been less studied compared with other urban natural environments. As a type of blue space, beaches are also affected by this lack of evidence, despite their cultural and economic importance in lots of coastal regions all over the world. Based on secondary health data from 3192 participants of the Health Survey of Barcelona 2016, we conducted a logit regression analysis to explore the relationship between people's general health and beach proximity from their dwelling place, controlling for several health determinants. Our main results suggested that having good general health was less likely for a 1-km increase in the linear distance to the closest beach from people's dwelling places (OR: 0.93; 95% CI: 0.87, 1.00). Moreover, the probability of having good general health was 45% higher for people living in the first 2 km from the beach (OR: 1.45; 95% CI: 1.01, 2.09), relative to those living >5-10 km from it. Also, these health effects were stronger for people with a low family income. These findings contribute to grow the currently small body of research related to health benefits of beach spaces. Likewise, they encourage fostering the use of these spaces for health promotion in cities, as well as protecting them and improving their accessibility and safety. Further research should lean towards the underlying causes of these health benefits linked to people's exposure to beach spaces.

Migration, Affinities, and the Everyday Labor of Belonging among Young Burmese Men in Thailand

Fire dancers in Southern Thailand, almost exclusively young, intra-/international migrant men from rural Thailand and Myanmar, are paid to entertain tourists at nightly beach parties. An unacknowledged economy fueled largely by tips, fire dancing is fast becoming an iconic symbol of Thailand’s young backpacker tourism sector but is not considered an acceptable form of labor or a valued artistic practice, because tourist beach spaces are perceived as sites of immorality, excessive drinking, and sexuality. Male fire dancers, then, come to be known as young social deviants who do not belong in the national imaginary and thus must maneuver around a complex politics of belonging with vast differences in social and economic power. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, this article examines how belonging is negotiated among Burmese fire dancers working in Thailand, and how experiences of belonging are shaped by spatialized gendered moralities and masculinities that operate within the fire dancing scene.

Overseas tourists negotiating risk at Australian beaches

Beachgoing experiences are highly desirable among international tourists visiting Australia. Beach use has been popularised in the contemporary Australian imaginary influencing how locals behave at the beach and setting an example to visitors. Many of the behaviours that Australian beach users’ display can be classed as risky. How and why tourists enact certain risky behaviours in their attempts to comply with beach going norms in Australia is not well known. The imagined beachgoing psyche of tourists describes a disconnection between pre-conceptions about risk at the beach and the reality of actual risks and hazards. The pursuit of thrill and risk while on holiday work to reconcile tourist attitudes about their often safety-averse behaviours, helping to explain why beach safety is often ignored, accidentally and purposefully. The influence of other social phenomena, such as the amplification of risk, interactive risk and group norms, contribute to tourists’ beach behaviours in Australia. Beachgoer questionnaires and interview testimonies triangulated results using a mixed-method-research approach that identifies the mechanisms that lead to an incoherence between understandings of danger and safe behaviours, which were specific to the socio-spatial context of the Australian beach space. There is much ambiguity in the nature of the Australian beach holiday, where the tourist beachgoer can choose between behaviours of escape (to relax) and excite (to take risks). This can lead to the conflation of these contrasting, yet spatially connected, pursuits.

Multi-Decadal to Short-Term Beach and Shoreline Mobility in a Complex River-Mouth Environment Affected by Mud From the Amazon

On the 1500 km-long mud-dominated Guianas coast of South America, between the mouths of the two mega-rivers, the Amazon and the Orinoco, debouch numerous small rivers draining the humid tropical/equatorial Guiana Shield. The geomorphic development of the mouths of these rivers reflects interactions among water discharge, fluvial sediment load, and the alongshore migration of Amazon-derived mud banks alternating with inter-bank areas. The mouth of the Maroni River, astride the French Guiana-Suriname border, shows advanced estuarine infill and geomorphic development characterized by a western (downdrift) side comprising numerous recent cheniers and an eastern (updrift) side bound by an old (> 2000 years B.P.) chenier. A multi-decadal analysis of the beach bounding this chenier shows little net overall mobility notwithstanding significant decadal to sub-decadal variation. The overall stability reflects the diversion of sand supply from the Maroni River towards the downdrift coast and limited sand supply by the smaller Mana River further east, and the south bank of which was contiguous with this beach. The variability in beach multi-decadal mobility reflects the influence, on waves, of alongshore-migrating banks (strong wave dissipation, limited beach mobility) and inter-bank areas (limited wave dissipation, larger beach mobility), highlighted by a comparison, in the current bank phase, of offshore and inshore waves. Erosion of the beach between 2011 and 2017 coincides with the sealing of the mouth of the Mana by muddy progradation in 2011 and mouth relocation several kilometers eastward. The morphodynamics of the beach and shorter-term fluctuations in budget are related to: (1) interaction with estuarine sand dunes mobilized by strong tidal currents on the adjacent shallow shoreface, (2) the influence of the Maroni channel, and (3) rapid encroachment of the leading edge of the shore-attached mud bank on the eastern part of the beach. The beach morphodynamics and evolution highlight, thus, embedded levels of influence: the Maroni at the local scale, and the net westward sediment-transport system and bank and inter-bank alternations that affect the Guianas coast at a regional scale. The recent erosion poses a threat to the local communities by reducing beach space available for recreation and turtle-nesting.

Estudio sobre la mercantilización de las playas en la costa marítima bonaerense

En las localidades costero-marítimas bonaerenses se encuentra vigente y en expansión un proceso histórico de ocupación y apropiación del espacio de playa a través de inversiones públicas y privadas para el desarrollo del turismo de ‘sol y playa’. Este proceso ha sido definido como balnearización. El mismo, en el área de estudio, ha adquirido una tendencia a mercantilizar la playa, aspecto ligado a la reducción de espacios públicos, al avance privatizador y a la necesidad expansiva del capital para diversificar la oferta de servicios y productos. En función de este proceso, el objetivo del presente trabajo es proveer un análisis preliminar de la situación actual de las concesiones balnearias a escala regional, a través del análisis de los datos relevados en el estudio. De los resultados obtenidos, se pudo corroborar que los indicadores de balnearización, hacia el interior de la unidad regional investigada, se presentan en forma desigual y que algunos valores expresan problemáticas socioterritoriales. Para fines prácticos, se elaboró una cartografía específica para representar los resultados de los relevamientos.

Through of Beach Space Design for Person with Disabilities Based on Universal Design Principles

Most of existing public facilities in Indonesia, beach spaces become one of less accommodating places for people with disabilities. Researchers believe that the beach is a natural wealth of country that is entitled to be enjoyed by every layer of Indonesian society. Therefore, the beach space design becomes a place that needs to be developed in functional aspects in meeting the needs of people with disabilities. Researchers show that designers and architects are actors who have a role in creating human living space. In carrying out the role, must be aware that background and needs of human beings are very diverse. Researcher is also a hearing disabilities and “One Space” jury team begins an assessment for importance of universal design on beach space. The paper presented discussed the design of a beach space themed One Space with universal design principle approach as substitute for evaluation of 6 finalists of the best work design.

Responses by Atlantic Ghost Crab (Ocypode quadrata) Populations to Hurricane Impacts on a Texas Beach: A 10-Year Study

The Atlantic ghost crab (Ocypode quadrata) is a widely distributed predator and scavenger along Atlantic Ocean and Gulf Coast beaches. A long-term study was initiated on the Bolivar Peninsula of Texas in 2006 to assess the impact of human activity on ghost crabs. Line transects were used to determine crab burrow arrangement at a high-impact site and a low-impact site. Differences were found between the two sites in number of active burrows per transect, burrow density, the diameter of burrow openings, burrow distance to the high-water line, and nearest-neighbor distances. In Fall 2008, Hurricane Ike struck the study sites. Re-examinations of the sites in 2010 showed changes in ghost crab burrows. The high-impact site experienced a decline in human activity – beach width increased by > 50%, the number of burrows/transect tripled, and nearest-neighbor distances decreased by one-third. The hurricane also reshaped the low-impact site on the western tip of the peninsula as beach width decreased by two-thirds, burrow density increased by sevenfold, and nearest-neighbor distances decreased by one-half. Sampling in 2012, 2014, and 2016 show that some of the physical characteristics of the beach gradually returned to near pre-hurricane status. However, reduced beach space at the low-traffic site remained, with higher burrow density and reduced crab size persisting 8 years after the hurricane, and the post-storm reduction in human traffic in the high-impact site has maintained higher burrow density there even as traffic increased. Monitoring the ecological impact of hurricanes is of growing importance as global climate change could lead to increased frequency and severity of tropical storms.

‘Kicking Sand in the Face of Apartheid’: Segregated Beaches in South Africa

Abstract This article makes a contribution to address the overwhelming ‘present-mindedness’ of tourism geography scholarship. Using a range of archival sources an analysis is undertaken of the rise and demise of racial segregation on South Africa’s beaches during the period 1953-1989. The division of beach space along racial lines is an aspect of the implementation of what was termed ‘petty apartheid’. This analysis reveals that the national government’s attempts to legislate the making of beach segregation were uneven and contested in different coastal centres. By the 1980s, however, mounting opposition and resistance to the apartheid state resulted in the crumbling of beach apartheid and the formal desegregation of beach spaces.

Land-beach-risk-scape: deciphering the motivators of risk-taking at the beach in Australia

This article considers risk-taking associated with the popular leisure activity of beach going in Australia. It investigates the risk-taking proclivities and cultural protocols in Australian beach use which, to date, have received little research attention. Drawing on the testimonies of beachgoers, we provide a discussion on how risk can be both voluntary as well as accidental at the Australian beach. While accidental risk-taking can be attributed to a lack of beachscape safety or lack of hazard knowledge, it is often the result of peer, sociocultural and psychodynamic influences that result in the production and reproduction of a pervasive culture of risk-taking. This culture is explored via the influence of the enculturation of risk into Australian beach practices, the attenuation of safety perceptions among beachgoers, and the attraction to risky behaviours that affect those in the beach space. The reproduction of risk in Australian beach use and the feeling of attachment observed among research participants have been conceptualised as the embodied societal subject, as identified through geographic psychoanalysis. A psychoanalytic geographic interpretation of participant attitudes and beliefs concerning risk-taking and beach use has been used to theorise how the prevailing discourses and fantasies of Australian beach use shape this site-specific culture of risk.

Management priorities and carrying capacity at a high-use beach from tourists’ perspectives: A way towards sustainable beach tourism

The growth of beach tourism has increased the need for acceptable, practical and sustainable policies. Overcrowding, sand loss, habitat destruction, littering, water pollution, among others problems, are commonly documented arising from booming beach activities. The objective of this paper was to identify management priorities and estimate carrying capacity of a high-use beach from tourists’ perspectives. In this way, managers can make informed decisions, leading to enhanced beach quality. Specific procedures to fulfill this objective were progressively established to identify potential actions that address the concerns facing the beach environment. A body of data was collected by means of questionnaires. Results showed that beach cleanliness, safety, information provision, sediment and habitat management, and overcrowding were considered important by tourists, reflecting the areas of priority for actions. If a policy is set to avoid tourists overcrowding, the carrying capacity limit was estimated to be 680 people at one time and 2040 people on a daily basis. In this scenario, a tourist enjoys on average 22.06 square meters of the beach space. Results from focus group discussion suggest a list of potential actions targeting these management priorities. This helps to build a participative policy approach to sustainable beach development. Finally, taking special care in putting the management priorities into practice was discussed to facilitate beach management.

Sensory geographies and defamiliarisation: migrant women encounter Brighton Beach

This article’s starting point is a sensory, reflexive walk taken on Brighton seafront and beach, by fourteen migrant women and some of their children. It goes on to open up a wider discussion about the cultural politics and affective resonances, for refugees and migrants, of beaches. By discussing their sensory experiences of the beach, we begin to understand their ‘ostranenie’, or defamiliarisation, of making the familiar strange. We also see how evocative such sense-making can be, as the women compare their past lives to this, perceiving their lifeworld through a filter of migrancy.The article goes onto discuss the broader cultural symbolism of beaches, which are a site of contestation over national values, boundaries and belonging. As well as discussing sensory methodology in this article, and explaining the locale of Brighton Beach itself, it concludes with some wider thinking of the cultural politics of beach spaces and migrant perceptions.

Análise da percepção do visitante sobre a revitalização da orla marítima: o modelo do Parque Linear Calçadão, Itapema – Santa Catarina – Brasil

Os destinos turísticos de sol e praia preconizam pelo gerenciamento do espaço costeiro segundo os princípios da sustentabilidade, na perspectiva de desenvolver, de forma sistêmica, suas funções econômicas e ambientais. Neste contexto, o estudo analisa a percepção ambiental dos visitantes do município de Itapema (SC) sobre a revitalização da orla marítima, a partir da implantação do Parque Linear Calçadão, resultado do processo de implementação do Projeto Orla no município. Os métodos adotados para a investigação estão consubstanciados no paradigma interpretativista, que aborda uma visão subjetiva dos fenômenos sociais, embasando metodologicamente o método estudo de caso. O aporte principal da pesquisa se desenvolveu por meio da técnica de entrevista semiestruturada com nove informantes do destino e, foram posteriormente, analisadas segundo o método do Discurso do Sujeito Coletivo (DSC). Os resultados demonstraram a satisfação dos visitantes (turistas e excursionistas) com a revitalização da orla marítima e com a estrutura do Parque Linear Calçadão. Seus depoimentos evidenciaram a valorização da orla como espaço público de lazer, favorecendo atividades turístico-recreativas no espaço praial com segurança, sociabilidade e mobilidade aos frequentadores. Aspectos citados como ordenamento da orla, estrutura para fruição do lazer pelas distintas faixas etárias, contemplação da paisagem, preservação da vegetação e, a valorização da imagem do município também foram confirmadas na pesquisa como pontos positivos. Considera-se, a partir do estudo, que as cidades costeiras devem revitalizar seus espaços naturais e assegurá-los para o bem estar dos residentes e visitantes, guiando-se pelos programas de gestão existentes em nível estadual e federal, a exemplo do Projeto Orla.

Effects on Five Species of Shorebirds of Experimental Closure of a Beach in New Jersey: Implications for Severe Storms and Sea-Level Rise

For management, it is important to understand the factors that affect foraging efficiency of birds during migration, especially in the face of severe storms and sea-level rise. An experiment was conducted whereby a beach used extensively by migrant shorebirds and people was open and experimentally closed to human activity to examine factors affecting feeding when there was no disturbance, with the beach opened or closed to human activity, and following disturbances. When the beach was closed, the factors affecting the percent of shorebirds foraging varied by species, but involved the number of conspecifics or other shorebirds, location along the beach, and number of raptors. Overall, 30% of flocks were disturbed as a function of type of disturbance, location along the beach, and whether the beach was open or closed. These data suggest that individuals, vehicles, and raptors influence the ability of shorebirds to forage undisturbed, indicating the importance of having some sections of important stopover beaches where shorebirds can feed and roost undisturbed by human activity. A corollary is that other parts of the beach can be freely used by people; environmental health can encompass both protected areas for shorebirds and open areas for fishing and recreation. Severe storms and sea-level rise will limit beach space for both human and avian activities, and understanding mitigation for both is essential to wise adaptive management.

The Frontier of Leisure in California and the Shaping of Modern America (review)

Reviewed by: The Frontier of Leisure in California and the Shaping of Modern America William Philpott The Frontier of Leisure in California and the Shaping of Modern America. By Lawrence Culver. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. x + 317 pages, $29.95. Click for larger view View full resolution Anaheim Public Library, Bookmobile, Interior View. Ca. 1960. Photograph. Accession #P1756. Courtesy of the Anaheim Public Library. Depicted here is the first bookmobile operated by the Anaheim Public Library, purchased in 1958. The history of the bookmobile in the United States began with a horse and wagon at the Washington County Free Library in Hagerstown, Maryland; during the 1950s and '60s, bookmobiles proliferated with an increase in literacy and a decentralization of the reading public. [End Page 326] "Ranch houses suit any climate," declared House Beautiful in 1947. With its rambling, casual floor plan and its sliding doors and patios blurring outdoors and in, the ranch house might epitomize sunny Southern California, but it was equally at home in Connecticut or Illinois, the author of the article insisted (House Beautiful, January 1947, 61). For the ranch, more than just a house style, was "a Way of Living," a means of "planning house and site together" to achieve comfort, privacy, and "outdoor living in any season anywhere" (House Beautiful 66, 61, 66). This idea—that Southern California spawned not just a style but a lifestyle, premised on outdoor recreation in the privacy of one's own yard and home—is the core of Lawrence Culver's new monograph. We have long needed a history of Southern California's distinctive culture of leisure and its consequences, and now in this superb book we have it. A richness of recent scholarship has illuminated Southern California's cultural, racial, political, and environmental histories. Culver breaks new ground by revealing the central role leisure played in all of them. Leisure drove Southern California's growth from the late nineteenth century on as boosters promised tourists and new residents alike a relaxed, pastoral retreat from the East's urban chaos. Leisure reshaped environmental attitudes when Southern Californians learned to value nature more for personal pleasure than for national greatness or resource wealth, and leisure molded architecture and planning, as houses, yards, and subdivisions were designed to give homeowners their own private recreational spaces. Key to Culver's argument, leisure helped define social difference—including the very idea of "whiteness" in a racially diverse region—as these private, backyard leisure spaces took precedence over public ones and people of color found themselves barred from both. And not least, leisure catalyzed a significant social and political shift when consumers came to value their private recreational domains over community and collective enterprise. In short, leisure forged a world of equal parts "opportunity and oppression, happiness and hardship" (3); one of this book's great strengths is that Culver refuses to cast it in simplistic black-or-white terms. Especially after World War II, this culture of leisure would spread beyond Southern California, becoming America's middle-class, suburban culture writ large. Not a comprehensive history of Southern California leisure, Culver's book instead focuses on several pivotal people and places. Readers of this journal should especially appreciate his chapter on Charles Fletcher Lummis, the turn-ofthe-century author whose self-professed "scholarly" writings on the scenery and Native cultures of the Southwest helped make Los Angeles a major tourist destination. [End Page 327] Here Culver links Southern California's recreational rise to the longer history of American conquest in the Southwest, as Anglo boosters like Lummis relegated indigenous Mexicans and Indians to a romantic, idyllic past while also expecting them to work in the present so whites might play. Another chapter considers the history of recreational segregation in Los Angeles. Though leisure anchored LA's civic identity, Culver shows, the city and county prioritized private over public recreation and strove to exclude nonwhites from what little public park and beach space there was. African Americans, in particular, fought back, claiming and creating recreational settings for themselves. But LA's legacy would be one of recreational reinforcing of residential segregation, a sad blueprint for suburbia in the rest of America. Two...