If you want your city to be healthier, happier, safer, wealthier, less unequal and more child-friendly and resilient, just slow it down. Slowing the city may be an effective treatment for many debilitating urban conditions. Our new Manifesto for 21st Century Slow Cities is intended to guide progressive politicians, practitioners and citizens in efforts to end the damaging culture of speed in the city. They are more competitive in the global economy, with higher tax yields and GDPs. Slow cities have less inequality, less air pollution, less road trauma and lower greenhouse gas emissions. While our cultural obsession with speed might prompt some to question or even ridicule “slowness”, it is worth considering the slow city dividend. What next for parklets? It doesn't have to be a permanent switch back to parking Local, slow, “park-like” spaces have been created from reallocated traffic lanes, creating safe space for people rather than for speed. Hence “slowing the city” may be a more feasible and appealing concept to planners and city residents than “encouraging active travel” or “curbing car use”.Īlready, COVID-19 has helped us think about alternative uses for streets in the city. In the 21st century various “slow movements” – “slow food”, “slow parenting”, “slow tourism” – have gained traction. Photo: City of Oakland, Author provided (no reuse) The slow city dividend Residents enjoy the benefits of a slow street in Oakland, California. These cities, and many others, have lowered motorised traffic speeds and increased active travel. Examples include Oslo and Helsinki, Paris and Bogotá. “Why don’t we start thinking about speed as a problem rather than as a solution?”Įlements of slow cities have been implemented successfully throughout the world. As Carlos Pardo asked in his presentation at UN Habitat in 2017: Street re-organisation to promote the “slower” travel modes and create slow spaces.Īchieving these goals requires a new vision for the city. Land-use planning to shorten distances to destinations Lowering speed limits as part of holistic approaches such as Vision Zero – which aims for no road deaths or serious injuries These slow, active modes are also the healthiest and most sustainable modes.Ī “slow city” strategy draws on many strands of planning policy, including: Hence walking, cycling and public transport are preferred ways to travel. In accessibility-rich places you don’t need to move fast. Planning for accessibility focuses on time well spent. Planning for speed and mobility focuses on saving time, which is rarely achieved in practice. Vacation Quest: Australia GPU Analysis Comparing Vacation Quest: Australia PC system requirements to all GPUs shows that Vacation Quest: Australia is going to need a graphics card that is capable of. Instead of “mobility” (how far you can go in a given time), the goal of the “slow city” is accessibility (how much you can get to in that time). ShutterstockĬoronavirus reminds us how liveable neighbourhoods matter for our well-beingĪn alternative to trying to go faster is to “slow the city”, as we explain in our book, Slow Cities: Conquering our speed addiction for health and sustainability. ![]() The all-consuming quest for speed is expensive and bad for both our well-being and the planet’s.
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