Slow Cities: Conquering Our Speed Addiction for Health and Sustainability demonstrates, counterintuitively, that reducing the speed of travel within cities saves time for residents and creates more sustainable, liveable, prosperous and healthy environments. This book examines the ways individuals and societies became dependent on transport modes that required investment in speed. Using research from multiple disciplinary perspectives, the book demonstrates ways in which human, economic and environmental health are improved with a slowing of city transport. It identifies effective methods, strategies and policies for decreasing the speed of motorised traffic and encouraging a modal shift to walking, cycling and public transport. This book also offers a holistic assessment of the impact of speed on daily behaviours and life choices, and shows how a move to slow down will - perhaps surprisingly - increase accessibility to the city services and activities that support healthy, sustainable lives and cities. - Includes cases from cities in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australasia - Uses evidence-based research to support arguments about the benefits of slowing city transport - Adopts a broad view of health, including the health of individuals, neighbourhoods and communities as well as economic health and environmental health - Includes text boxes, diagrams and photos illustrating the slowing of transport in cities throughout the world, and a list of references including both academic sources and valuable websites

Slow Food began in the late 1980s as a response to the spread of fast food establishments and as a larger statement against globalization and the perceived deterioration of modern life. Since then, slow practices have permeated into other areas, including cities and territories and travel and tourism. This book provides an in-depth examination of slow food, tourism and cities, demonstrating how these elements are intertwined with one other as part of the modern search for "the good life." Part 1 locates the slow concept within the larger social setting of modernity and investigates claims made by the slow movement, examining aesthetic and instrumental values inherent to it. Part 2 explores the practices and places of slow, containing both conceptual and empirical chapters in Italy, the birthplace of the movement. Part 3 provides a comparative perspective by examining the practices in Spain, the UK, Germany and Canada. Slow Tourism, Food and Cities offers key theoretical insights and alternative perspectives on the varying practices and meanings of slow from a cultural, sociological and ethical perspective. It is a valuable text for students and scholars of sociology, geography, urban studies, social movements, travel and tourism, and food studies.

Originating in Italy, "slow food" is not only committed to the preservation of traditional cuisines and sustainable agriculture but also the pleasures of the table and a slower approach to life in general. Craig and Parkins argue that slow living is a complex response to processes of globalization. It connects ethics and pleasure, the global and the local, as part of a new emphasis on everyday life in contemporary culture and politics.

Burned-out after years of doing development work around the world, William Powers spent a season in a 12-foot-by-12-foot cabin off the grid in North Carolina, as recounted in his award-winning memoir Twelve by Twelve. Could he live a similarly minimalist life in the heart of New York City? To find out, Powers and his wife jettisoned 80 percent of their stuff, left their 2,000-square-foot Queens townhouse, and moved into a 350-square-foot “micro-apartment” in Greenwich Village. Downshifting to a two-day workweek, Powers explores the viability of Slow Food and Slow Money, technology fasts and urban sanctuaries. Discovering a colorful cast of New Yorkers attempting to resist the culture of Total Work, Powers offers an inspiring exploration for anyone trying to make urban life more people- and planet-friendly.

Community quality-of-life (QOL) indicators continue to gain attention and interest in their use as many communities and regions design and apply them. Evolving from early use as data systems, indicators are increasingly being integrated into overall planning and other public policy activities. Their use is found not only in monitoring and evaluation applications, but also in the context of increasing citizen partici- tion in guiding communities towards achieving desired goals. Indeed, the emphasis in many indicator applications now includes linking actions to outcomes – making sure that the indicators are integrated, useful and effective in helping communities address QOL issues. The use of QOL indicators to consider a full spectrum of c- munity and regional well-being is exciting and the focus on integration is certain to bring new and innovative applications to the forefront. This is the third book in a series covering best practices in community QOL indicators. Each volume presents individual cases (chapters) of communities at the local or regional levels that have designed and implemented community indicators programs. In Volume I, we present eight chapters from a variety of contexts – from the county level in the U. S. , to the large megalopolis of Sao Paulo, to looking at a cross section of communities throughout Europe. Also included are three chapters from Canada, a leader in applying community indicator systems.

Tourism studies at Masters level are often divided into subsets of tourism such as environmental tourism, rural tourism and sports tourism. This book provides an overview of types of tourism, and common themes studied in courses to allow undergraduate students to become familiar with a wide range of tourism topics at a foundation level, allowing them to make an informed decision about their future studies and career. It will also be a useful text for providing a broad brush introduction to the major topics that are covered in undergraduate courses. Popular subjects like urban tourism, festival.

Place branding has made it possible for international destinations to be able to compete within the global economy. Through the promotion of different cities, natural beauty, and local culture or heritage, many regions have been able to increase their revenue and international appeal by attracting tourists and investments. Global Place Branding Campaigns across Cities, Regions, and Nations provides international insights into marketing strategies and techniques being employed to promote global tourism, competitiveness, and exploration. Featuring case studies and emergent research on place branding, as well as issues and challenges faced by destinations around the world, this book is ideally suited for professionals, researchers, policy makers, practitioners, and students.

Is the USA hospitable to the slow movement? The land of fast food, get-rich-quick schemes, and 24/7 news feeds? In Slow Culture and the American Dream: A Slow and Curvy Philosophy for the Twenty-First Century, Mary Caputi argues that the slow movement has much to teach the United States at this moment in time. Although slow philosophy is in many ways opposite to the prevalent American Dream, the current cultural setting demands that we heed its teachings. The climate crisis should make us rethink our fast-paced, ever-accelerating lifestyle so that we can lighten our carbon footprint and decelerate--if not reverse-- the damage done to the planet. Equally important, however, is the movement’s mandate that we slow down and savor life, focusing on quality, beauty, and calm rather than quantity and speed. Slow Food, Cittaslow (slow cities), slow fashion, slow travel, and slow parenting are examples of a philosophy that seeks to shift our focus away from “progress” as currently understood and revalue quality-of-life issues. Drawing deeply on her involvement with Slow Food and Cittaslow, the author advocates mainstreaming the philosophy of slow and thus reprioritizing the American Dream in ways that sustain the planet and teach Americans to develop a more refined aesthetic principle.

This book investigates small town tourism development in South Africa taking into account the most common strategies: branding, promotion, festivals and theming. The contents of the book resonate with the intersection of the power elite and their impacts on small town tourism. Because the book focuses on small town geographies in South Africa, the literature on small town tourism in the country is reviewed in Chapter 2 to provide a contextual background. Each subsequent chapter begins with an overview of international literature to give the conceptual context of the case studies each chapter explores. In Chapter 3 the concept of small town tourism branding is illustrated by an exploration of the Richmond book town. In Chapter 4 the branding theme is probed further in an investigation of two winners of the Kwêla Town of the Year competition namely Fouriesburg and De Rust. Chapter 5 documents the branding of Sedgefield through its proclamation as Africa’s first Cittaslow (slow town), a process driven by the local power elite to the exclusion of town’s poor who have no understanding of the intentions of the Cittaslow movement and its potential benefits for the town. Chapter 6 is a case study of Greyton’s tourism-led rural gentrification by which a small town has transformed in three decades to become a sought after place of residence for elite inmigrants so making the town a jewel tourism destination while reinforcing racial segregation. Because festivals and events - creations of the wealthy - have made significant financial contributions to small towns, Chapter 7 considers festivals and events as strategies to market and brand small towns in a particular way. Case studies of the economic impacts of festivals on small towns are assessed and the assessment methodologies used are critiqued. Chapter 8 provides a synthesis by drawing on the thesis of the urban growth machine by power elites.

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER - OVER 1/2 MILLION COPIES SOLD, NOW WITH NEW PREFACE Across the western world more and more people are slowing down. Slower is better: better work, better productivity, better exercise, better sex, better food. DON'T HURRY, BE HAPPY. Almost everyone complains about the hectic pace of their lives. These days, our culture teaches that faster is better. But in the race to keep up, everything suffers - our work, diet and health, our relationships and sex lives. International bestselling author Carl Honoré uncovers a movement that challenges the cult of speed. In this entertaining and hands-on investigation, he takes us on a tour of the emerging Slow movement: from a Tantric sex workshop in London to a meditation room for Tokyo executives, from a SuperSlow exercise studio in New York, to Italy, the home of the Slow Food, Slow Cities and Slow Sex movements. There has never been a better time to embrace the healing power of living slow.