Based on my American experience—my western New York experience—I wouldn't characterize places like Bay Beach and Crystal Beach, Thunder Bay or Sherkston as rural areas. I think what I have been conditioned to view them as is cottage communities. They're interconnected. They're typically in close proximity to the water. These homes were built to be seasonal homes.
Cottages are, by their very nature, a vacation destination used on a seasonal basis. I wouldn't necessarily, from my own experience, make the distinction between Toronto and, let's say, Crystal Beach, Ontario, as urban versus rural.
My view would be that it's very different. Perhaps it's its own categorization of a cottage community, because historically, that's what Americans have viewed places like Crystal Beach and Bay Beach, etc., to be.