Slow

a cultural revolution against the notion that faster is always better. The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything at a snail‘s pace. It’s about seeking to do everything at the right speed. Savoring the hours and minutes rather than just counting them. Doing everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible. It’s about quality over quantity in everything from work to food to parenting

Carl Honoré, in Praise of Slow

I hadn’t known that this movement arose as a backlash against McDonald’s opening a restaurant near Rome’s Spanish Steps in 1986.

While it began with food, the slow movement has expanded to many domains, for example urban planning via the slow city movement:

The Slow movement was first seen as an idea for a few people who liked to eat and drink well, but now it has become a much broader cultural discussion about the benefits of doing things in a more human, less frenetic manner

Bruna Sibille, CittaSlow Movement

The slow city movement centers environmental sustainability, local production, and historically marginalized voices:

giv[ing] back a voice to those who have been voiceless – the indigenous peoples that have lost their cultivation techniques and their seeds and the small farmers who are the real scientists in the field and are not listened to. The women whose activities are closely connected to life, the old people who are guardians of our experiences, young people, who represents a real commitment to improving the planet

Why CittaSlow?

I got all of this from John Allsop’s thinking on [applying the slow movement’s principles to the tech conferences he organizes](From https://www.webdirections.org/blog/slow-conferences/).