With the frantic pace of daily life on a steady rise, the need for change becomes more urgent. The Slow Living Movement revolts against pop cultural homogenisation and fast-paced living and urges us to protect and support treasured cultural traditions and ways of life. The Slow mission has been adapted to successful and growing social initiatives spanning from Slow Food to Slow Travel, and even Slow Cities.

What is the Slow Cities Movement?

In 1999, inspired by the successful Slow Food Movement, a group of traditional Italian towns banded together in the hopes of protecting and supporting their cultural traditions and heritage, and green and sustainable living, to create global organisation Cittaslow, which literally translates to “Slow city”. Cittaslow recognises the need and value of celebrating and supporting tradition and cultural diversity within towns and cities in order to protect a high quality of easy and enjoyable living.

What makes a city Slow?

The Cittaslow organisation holds the power to assess which cities have the right to be deemed “Slow”, and have developed a Manifesto underlying their core principles and a Charter of Association to be signed by all member cities. Towns or cities may apply to the organisation to gain Cittaslow status, and may achieve such if they meet the requirements outlined in the Manifesto upon assessment and inspection. The high quality of green and sustainable life enjoyed in Slow towns and cities is achieved and maintained by the collective community that strives to protect and preserve its distinctive features and surrounding environment, ensure the environmentally-friendly use of land, preserve history and heritage, support the production and consumption of organic foods, promote products and practices with their roots in tradition and encourage widespread friendliness and hospitality.

According to the international Cittaslow Manifesto, a Slow town is “brought to life by people who make time to enjoy a quality of life…blessed with quality public spaces, theatres, shops, cafes, inns, historic buildings, and unspoiled landscapes…where traditional craft skills are in daily use, and where the slow, beneficial succession of the seasons is reflected in the availability of local produce, in season. Where healthy eating, healthy living and enjoying life are central to the community.”

As of 2009, there were over 100 recognised and idyllic Slow cities across the world, mostly located in Europe. Even for the cities and towns that do not quite meet membership requirements, the movement initiated by the establishment of the Cittaslow organisation supports slow, green, sustainable, enjoyable living. It encourages people everywhere to slow down and appreciate and preserve a higher quality of life supported by community values and tradition in an age of materialism and superficiality.