"I would like to learn how resort areas vote and why. Dr. Duncan said that one of the first things I need to figure out is what, exactly, a resort area is."

"Professor Orlando and I decided that my research had to start broadly and then narrow as my paper goes on, i.e., define resort areas, define electoral/political geography, and then discuss the intersection of the two. "

Hi Ivan,

I looked in SAGE Journals in our databases and found a possibility for you. If you think you would like to read the article by Gill, please complete an Interlibrary Loan article request form. The article seems to bring resort area and voting together from what I am reading in the abstract (please see the attached images).

From Growth Machine to Growth Management: The Dynamics of Resort Development in Whistler, British Columbia

Alison Gill

First Published June 1, 2000 Research Article

Abstract

In North America, competition for land has often been conceptualized as being driven by growth machines whereby those with common stakes in development form coalitions of local elites to influence government in pursuit of their goals. The inequitable benefits of growth have been challenged more recently by the introduction of growth-management practices that heighten the role of local residents in land-use decisions. In this paper, the concepts of the ‘growth machine’ and ‘growth management’ are applied to an examination of the resort community of Whistler, British Columbia. This approach transforms previous theorizations of resort formation which draw upon Butler's (1980) life-cycle model, by focusing on the social and political dynamics of growth. Whistler is seen to progress through a phase of uncontested growth-machine dominance, to a phase of local contestation that is then moderated by the introduction of growth-management practices. The evolutionary process is seen as a cumulative one in which, over time, social and environmental imperatives are imposed upon the economic imperatives of the growth machine.

Update: "I am using other sources like commercial lists ... and state tourism websites ... to narrow down the number of towns I have to comb through."