Investigation of local people's perceptions on the potential of Tirebolu to become a Cittaslow city

The Slow City movement has emerged as a worldwide movement to criticize fast and modern life, as well as to slow down and modernize unhealthy consumption in many different areas of life. In the global world order, change and progress continue at a rapid pace. This speed can have negative impacts on human life and the natural environment. The concept of "Slow", which emerged against these destructive effects of speed, was first introduced in Italy in the 1980s as Slow Food, focusing on food and beverage culture. Later, the concept was expanded to Slow City to value urban life and local culture. This Italian movement has become a worldwide trend and has created a new orientation for many cities. In Turkey, the Slow movement started in 2009 with the participation of Izmir Seferihisar district and by 2024 the number of Cittaslow members in Turkey has increased to 25. The study aims to determine what kind of perception the slow city movements in Tirebolu create among the local people by measuring the perceptions of the local people on the potential of Tirebolu to become a slow city. It can be seen as an important resource in the process of Tirebolu district becoming a slow city. Focusing on the findings, emphasizing the positive attitudes of the local people, ensuring the continuity of these positive thoughts, and drawing attention to the negative views and raising awareness to correct them can be important in terms of ensuring the interest and support of the local people in achieving Tirebolu's goal of becoming a quiet city. Quantitative research method was applied and a survey form was used. The data gathered from the participants were numerically coded and transferred to the SPSS 25.0 package program. First of all, it was checked whether there were any missing data or incorrectly entered data. Skewness and kurtosis values were examined to determine if the data were normally distributed and it was determined that the resulting values were not suitable for normal distribution. For this reason, non-parametric tests were preferred in the analysis of the data. In statistical analysis of the data; Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis H tests were used and significance was accepted as p<.05.