The dominant political narrative in Norway over the past half century maintains that the country is facing major challenges due to centralisation and urbanisation of the population. Responding to this assumption, this article argues that a significant segment of the population is in fact spending more time in rural areas when we consider the impact of second home mobility. This argument is based on a theoretical review of the ontological trajectories of settlement and mobility. Set in a rural-urban perspective, it addresses key demographic trends contrasting the sedentarist perspective for the registration of the population with the alternative view of time spent in rural locations. Based on the scope of the demographic shift and the apparent limitations of registration, it is argued that second home mobility re-assembles the rural in demographic as well as economic terms and should therefore be an integral part of studies of rural development.

This article analyses how mobility between the first and second home, called second home mobility is conceptualised in Norwegian political discourse. We investigated two political fields in which second homes have entered this discourse: regional policy and policy for transport and infrastructure at the national level. Public and parliamentary policy documents and public newspaper records of debates constitute the empirical material. The article addresses the way in which second home mobility is reflected in Norwegian regional policy and political discourses. It pays particular attention to how this kind of mobility might represent connections or divisions between rural and urban groups. In brief, policy persists in insisting on a conceptual division between rural and the urban, even while bridging of the rural and urban is occurring and creating a movement for managing prototypical space.

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This article addresses the influence of dominant and traditional ways of grasping the reality in social and economic processes of change. Our point of departure is how the perception of crisis in Odda, a small industrial community in Norway, influences the course of the process of change. The analysis focuses on a heated debate over the exploitation of a large site in the centre of Odda, left after the closure of the key factory. Rather than the economic and social consequences of the closure, the main challenge that arose from the crisis was related to the emergence of ambiguity in the local conceptual framework. Coming to terms with the situation stimulated various attempts to rearticulate the discourse of local development, with the result that industrial and culture‐based perspectives on development came into conflict. The economic crisis became a crisis of definition. In Odda, the industrial discourse finally domesticated the competing cultural discourse, ending years of conflict and inaction. In its explicit focus on the importance of local struggles and the way discourse structures such processes this story about recent developments in Odda complements literature on post‐industrial development.

In the mountainous hinterland of Norwegian cities new forms of habitation are emerging through mobility associated with second-home concentrations on mountain slopes. The guiding principle of this tangible spatial development is densification. The development is caused by a number of external and internal actors, each with their own agenda, geographical scale and trajectory. The objective of the article is to examine how various approaches to place-making and centre development affect and shape three case municipalities with a significant temporary population: Ringebu, Lesja and Røyrvik. Assemblage theory is employed as an analytical perspective, as the case municipalities are subject to various relations of exteriority. Based on interviews with relevant stakeholders and document analysis, the authors present the municipalities' different backgrounds and contexts, as well as relevant planning priorities and practices, and discuss how these lead to highly different types of place-making. The main finding is that while subject to the same national regulations and market forces, the case municipalities' approaches to local development have differed quite substantially. The authors conclude that different constellations of centrality constitute an important element in the municipalities' place-making strategies and that more empirical studies are needed to illustrate how local practices can reinforce spatial distinctiveness.