Farewell, fast lane: Italy inaugurates 'Slow Cities'

ROME (AP) -- Nearly three dozen Italian cities and towns banded together Thursday to form a new league of "Slow Cities," joining a burgeoning international movement to promote home-style food, local crafts and all-around good living.

"If by 'slow' the movement means adding value to culture, then we want to describe ourselves as a slow ministry," Italian Culture Minister Giovanna Melandri said at the league's launch in Rome.

The new Slow Cities league is a project of Italy's chief municipal alliance and of Slow Food, an international movement formed in 1989 with the aim of safeguarding culinary traditions.

Born of a backlash against fast-food, the Slow Food movement today boasts roughly 40,000 members in 35 countries, a slick magazine published in five languages and a popular biennial food show.

With 33 member towns -- all Italian but for Brtonigla in Croatia _ the "Slow Cities" network aims to expand internationally while remaining exclusive, network president Paolo Saturnini said.

"Good living is not only Italian -- but it is very Italian," said Saturnini, the mayor of Greve in Chianti, a Tuscan town famous for its Chianti wines.

To be eligible for membership, cities and towns must introduce measures on everything from the banning of car alarms to the promotion of organic agriculture, including the creation of centers where visitors can sample local traditional food in a setting in harmony with nature.

Towns making the slow-food grade -- the association plans to monitor that standards are kept high -- will benefit from a joint marketing strategy to attract tourists and investors, Saturnini said.

They will also be able to proudly display the "Slow Cities" logo -- a snail crawling past two buildings, one ancient, the other modern.

"Slowness does not represent something that is anti-modern, but rather an Italy that is on the move and that wants to use modern technologies like the Internet to preserve a better quality of life," Saturnini said.

Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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