Seeking Authenticity in Place, Culture, and the Self—The Great Urban Escape

In recent times, there has been a substantial push by people to escape the metropolis for lifestyles in small coastal, country, or mountainside locales. Called amenity-led migration, this movement is cultural with places of relatively quiet and peace standing against the city with its stressful, risky, and polluted environment. This book explores the narratives emerging from this extraordinary phenomenon using methods developed within the "strong" cultural sociology. Using narrative theory combined with broader sociological concepts, the book illustrates effectively how the city has declined in value against a countryside left behind in modern progress.

Nick Osbaldiston is a lecturer in sociology at Monash Gippsland in Australia. He is the author of several papers on the subject of Amenity Migration or Seachange and has also recently edited a collection on slow movements called The Culture of the Slow. Nick is currently also an ex-officio member of The Australian Sociological Association and is a co-convener of the Australian Cultural Sociology Thematic Group.