Although a significant amount of empirical research makes linkages between natural amenities and developmental attributes within the context of rural change, there has yet to be forwarded a defensible, comprehensive, and explanatory theoretical construct upon which to better understand the presence, use, and production of natural amenities within the context of development. Key unique attributes of natural amenity resources identify short-term issues of irreversibility, non-producibility, and nontradability. Given alternative temporal specification, however, our ability to manipulate, produce, and utilize natural amenities is obvious, albeit indirect. How does resource management affect the presence and quality of natural amenity resources? How compatible are amenity resources with jointly produced market-based natural resource outputs? How are natural amenities used to produce tourism? What is the relevant set of externalities involved in supplying natural amenity resources? Upon what theoretical basis do we develop public policy that acts to alter regional natural amenity resources? These are the key questions addressed in this manuscript that provide a theoretical basis for characterizing the supply of amenities and their use in affecting rural economic change. In developing a consistent and robust set of amenity supply concepts, we provide an interdisciplinary basis to substantiate a theory of the post-productivist countryside thus allowing a more complete understanding of amenity-based development phenomena.
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