The "slow town movement" Cittaslow

The Slow Food movement was born in Italy in 1986 in response to the opening of a McDonald's right across the famous Spanish Steps in Rome. The name of the movement directly references its main enemy — fast food — and summarizes its main principle of doing the exact opposite. Slow Food promotes the unhurried enjoyment of food prepared to the traditional recipes, with products that are locally and lovingly grown with the utmost respect for the environment.

The seeds of the mastermind behind Slow Food, Carlo Petrini, a famous Italian restaurant critic, have taken plentiful root — the movement today¹ has over 80,000 active supporters with the representation in 50 countries.

Immediately after Slow Food was born it has been discovered that the adjective "slow" is key not only to the issue of eating healthy but many other aspects of human existence as well. Thus, Slow Education, Slow Marketing, Slow Parenting, Slow Media and many more started appearing around the world. The subject of urban existence wasn't left out either — in 1999, again in Italy, the movement of Cittaslow started gaining traction.

The mayors of Greve in Chianti, Bra, Orvieto, and Positano, inspired by Petrini's ideas and endorsed by him personally, created an association of towns of "high quality of life". The chosen criteria for rating said quality included over 60, for example: a population of 50,000 or under; an environmentally conscious approach to the development of urban infrastructure; careful preservation of cultural heritage and traditional trades, support of cultural tourism, and, of course, an adherence to principles of Slow Food in everything related to eating.

The Cittaslow association now includes 79 Italian municipalities. Apart from Italy, the movement is developing in ten more European countries, as well as in Great Britain, Turkey, the USA and South Korea. You can see the full list of Slow Cities on the official website of the association.

Cittaslow arrived in Spain in 2006. Knowing how partial the Spaniards are to slow living and eating with gusto, it would be logical to assume booming Cittaslow membership numbers in the nation. However, there are only eight Slow Cities in Spain, and by looking at their founders, it becomes clear why there are so few.

The Spanish chapter of Cittaslow has been founded by the mayors of Begur, Pals, Mungia, Lekeitio, and Rubielos de Mora — two towns in Catalonia, two in the Basque Country, and one from Aragón. The abovementioned towns are really wonderful, but rolling out the movement across Spain with the founders belonging to the rebellious Basques and Catalans has proven to be difficult — mayors from calmer, more politically content regions do not rush to follow suit.

Over the last ten years, only three more towns have joined Cittaslow, two of which are, again, from Catalonia and the Basque Country.

Photo album «Begur»
Photo album «Pals»

¹⁾The data from June 2016.