CittàSlow: Producing Slowness against the Fast Life

Abstract

CittàSlow, which means ‘slow city’, is an international network of small towns that originated in Italy less than a decade ago. Now it is proliferating in many other countries and there are more than 100 slow cities in the world. A slow city agrees to working towards a set of goals that aim to improve the quality of life of its citizens and its visitors. One of these goals is to create borders against the spread of the ‘fast life’, the philosophy and materiality of which are embodied in the ‘fast food’ restaurant chains which are fast replacing traditional restaurants in Europe and in many other part of the world. Drawing on insights from STS and material semiotics approaches, the paper tries to give an account of what CittàSlow produces and how it proliferates by looking at the outline for joining the network. It is suggested that it is a set of technologies for producing slowness. Every CittàSlow produces a version of slowness. Every slow translation is a little different and two slow cities, Orvieto and San Vincenzo, are presented to illustrate these differences. In order to work and to reproduce a new version of slowness in each new and diverse/distant locality, there is always change and adaptation to local conditions and contingencies. But this suggests that both the qualification of the slow objects, practices and spaces, and the variable procedures for joining the CittàSlow network, may be understood as fluid technologies that create mutable mobiles and perform boundaries between slow and fast.

The material presented in this paper is based on interviews and informal conversations with members, chefs and governors of the Slow Food movement in Italy between year 1998 and year 2003 and, in the spring of 2007, on participant observations in three slow cities in Italy, three interviews and several informal conversations with representatives of CittàSlow and civil servants both in the UK and in Italy (in the towns Ludlow, England and in San Vincenzo and Greve in Chianti in Italy). The material about the ‘CittàSlow Manifesto’ used in this paper draws upon an analysis of the Italian webpage and on documents kindly made available during the interview in San Vincenzo. The author is most grateful to Paolo Saturnini, mayor of Greve in Chianti, founder and honorary president of the CittàSlow movement, for his time and for sharing his notes for the conference ‘CittàSlow, progetto per una citta’ utopica', held in Urbino, 14 April 2007).

Notes

1. Data available at (www.cittaslow.net; accessed December 2007; and http://www.saba.org.au/cittaslow2.html for the new network in Australia and New Zealand.

2. The interviews in Italy were conducted in Italian and the quotations presented throughout the paper have been translated by the author. However, given that the objective is not a detailed analysis of aspirations, vocabulary, values or beliefs of the various spokespersons of CittàSlow, but to give an account of the development of the movement in question, the author decided to make easy readable translations and summarised most of the accounts given by the interviewees.

The texts here cited are from the my own translation of the written notes for a talk that Paolo Saturnini gave at the Conference ‘CittàSlow, Project for a Utopian City’ in Urbino, Italy, on 14 April 2007. I want to thank Paolo Saturnini for letting me use this material.

3. See www.CittaSlow.net

4. Mayer and Knox look at Slow Food and CittàSlow movements as alternative approaches to urban economic development. In their analysis of a case study of two Slow Cities in Germany they conclude that

•  In this case ideas originating from the Slow City and Slow Food movements can generate alternative community-based and locally driven regimes that promote urban development strategies aimed at rooting the local economy and promoting local and environmentally sensitive development strategies (Mayer and Knox, 2006, p. 332).

• Knox, looking at the movement in Italy, assesses the experience of CittàSlow from an urban design perspective. He defines successful urban design as the competence to build an environment that cultivates a positive sense of place in the ordinary places that provide the setting for people's daily lives and he sees two opposite, but equally possible, risks: that a prescriptive ‘slowness’ could produce

•  enervated, backward-looking, isolationist communities: living mausoleums where the puritanical zealotry of Slowness has displaced the fervent materialism of the fast world (Knox, 2005, p. 7).

• However, Knox acknowledges that an openness to, and engagement with, innovations and new technologies, especially in the area of environmental technologies, is evident in the CittàSlow Charter and guidelines. Moreover, the policies and activities of the existing examples of Slow Cities are oriented “to encourage business through ecologically sensitive, regionally authentic and gastronomically oriented tourism” (Knox, 2005, p. 7). But a successful attentiveness to propagate vitality through a fervent materialism of slow living, with the creation of inviting public spaces, festivals and intimate consumption-scapes, such as farmers' markets and city centres full of osterias and craft shops, could bring about the danger that

•  paradoxically, Slow City designation becomes a form of brand recognition within the heritage industry. Because they are small … the charming attraction of Slow Cities could all too easily be overwhelmed by tourism. So the more they flaunt their gentle-paced life, the faster they may end up changing. In this scenario prices will rise, … cafes will lose their spilled-drink, smoky, messy, authenticity. … affluent outsiders will choose to make their second homes in them … and the poor and the young will be pushed out (Knox, 2005, pp. 7–8).

• Knox argues that, irrespective of what will happen to CittàSlow per se, its principles address directly the concepts of ‘dwelling’ and intersubjectivity that are important for the social construction of place and for successful urban design (Knox, 2005, p. 8).

5. I am grateful to John Law for discussion on this and related points.

6. Festina lente is a concept of the Renaissance, it was often represented by a snake with its tail in its mouth, by a dolphin entwined with an anchor, or by the figure of a seated woman holding wings in one hand and a tortoise in the other. It translates into English as ‘Make haste slowly’—proceed quickly but with caution.

7. This section is from http://www.slowfood.com/principles/slowcity.html, last accessed on 14 July 2007.

8. The SlowFood Ark of Taste and Presidia are initiatives dedicated to ‘rescuing’ local products that embody the principle of excellence in terms of quality but are at ‘risk of extinction’ from shrinking markets. The Presidia were created in 2000 to help artisan food producers directly. These small projects protect traditional production methods by supporting producers in situ and helping them to find markets for traditional foods. The Presidia, which began with just two projects in Italy, now encompasses more than 270 projects all over the world. Slow Food Presidia work in different ways, but the goals remain constant: to promote artisan products, stabilise production techniques, to establish stringent production standards and, above all, to guarantee a viable future for traditional foods (http://www.slowfoodfoundation.org/eng/presidi); for a discussion on these initiatives, see Miele and Murdoch (2003).

Slow Food supports biodiversity by promoting artisan producers of quality products. In 1996 it created a catalogue of foods that have experienced a shrinking of their market or the loss of expertise for making them and are at risk of disappearing completely. This initiative was called the Ark of Taste. At present, there are over 500 engendered animal breeds, fruit and vegetables in this catalogue as well as processed foods and regional dishes (www.slowfood.com).

9. “We consider ourselves co-producers, not consumers, because by being informed about how our food is produced and actively supporting those who produce it, we become a part of and a partner in the production process” (http://www.SlowFood.com).

10. The assessment is carried out by inspectors appointed by CittàSlow on the basis of a self-assessment produced by the local administration, during the first visit after receiving a request to join the movement. The local administrations that apply to CittàSlow are required to fill in an application form with indications about their initiatives regarding the 60 criteria of CittàSlow and to organise the visit of the inspectors. Every city in order to apply is required to pay a fee of 500 Euros (interview with a civil servant of the municipality of San Vincenzo, LI, member of CittàSlow since 2001).

11. International Organisation for Standardisation; see www.iso.org.

12. The certifying body in Italy is called Stratos (www.cittaslow.stratos.it).

13. A visit of the members of the Internationalisation Team needs to be organised and a reference person needs to be appointed to deal with the headquarters of CittàSlow in Italy. The reference person will be in charge of collaborating with the members of the Internationalisation Team in order to ‘translate’ culturally the CittàSlow parameters for the specific condition of the new country. Together with the members of the internationalisation team he/she will identify a certifying body, possibly in loco, equipped to carry out the certification in the country. The initial three towns will be called Promoting Cities and will be admitted to the movement, while waiting for the regular procedure to take place.

14. Vino Orvieto Doc, Vino Orvieto Classico Doc, Vino Orvieto abboccato, Vino Orvieto secco, Vino Orvieto amabile, Orvieto Classico Superiore, Vino Orvieto superiore abboccato.

15. For a description of the wine-routes in Italy see Brunori and Rossi (2000) who argue that a wine-route can be seen as a network established around the theme of wine.

16. Situated in the Convento San Giovanni (http://www.comune.orvieto.tr.it/accessibile/i/389FDCB0.htm) and see a dedicated webpage on its activities (www.palazzodelgusto.it).

17. Orvieto is also connected to the other Slow Cities through a series of joint initiatives dedicated to the production and the translation of Slowness in different contexts: courses of food education, projects to protect local produce and crafts, the expansion of car-free areas.

18. The full name of this initiative is ‘Percorsi sensoriali e di orientamento alle tecniche pittoriche per bambini/e a Palazzo del Gusto’.

19. For a discussion on the diffrence between ‘getting sensitised to a taste’ and ‘having taste’, see Hennion (2007, p. 98).

20. This initiative has been co-financed by the EU through a Leader + project called ‘Messa in rete dei territori locali, le CittàSlow’ (‘Creating a network of local territories, the CittàSlow’).

21. Pink (2007) looks at the activities that promote the engagement of the senses in the production of knowledge in the case of Aylsham (UK), a small town that recently joined CittàSlow, and calls them a set of processes that aim to create ‘emplaced subjects’.

22. See a description of the initiatives in 2007 at: http://www.orvietocongusto.it/it/english_summary.html.

23. Artisans shops (botteghe artigiane) that make and sell craft objects in ceramics, leather, iron, wood, stone, terracotta, glass, dolls, among others.

24. De Laet and Mol (2000, p. 225) mobilise the term ‘love’ for articulating their relation to the bush pump and for ‘doing’ normativity.

25. For all the CittàSlow networks in Europe.

26. See http://www.comune.san-vincenzo.li.it for a brief account of the history of the town.

27. See http://www.cittadelvino.com/ctdv/index_com.bfr.

28. See http://www.cittadellolio.it/ and http://www.cittadellolio.it/home.asp.

29. San Vincenzo presented its activities in a conference dedicated to show to the candidate towns how to implement an environmental policy dedicated to the preservation of natural resources in a town where the main economic activity is beach/mass tourism. The representatives of the first three Portuguese towns participated to a series of visits and exchanges in San Vincenzo in the summer of 2006 and shortly afterwards formed the first network in Portugal (interview 1, San Vincenzo).

30. The Renaissance historian Frances A. Yates (1996) recalls that Cicero, in De orator, narrates how the art of memory was invented by the poet Simonides[0] and then points out that it is in the textbook for students in rhetoric ‘Ad Herennian’ that this mnemonic technique is explained in detail. In this text, memory is said to occur in two kinds: the natural memory and the artificial memory and it is the latter that can be enhanced by training.