The comparison of approaches of Turkey and Austria towards the cittaslow event: Cases of Horn and Seferihisar

Recently, the cittaslow (slow city) concept has been mentioned ubiquitously, which has become a development model for small and livable cities. The cities which desire to affiliate with this organization have chance to re-claim and sustain their cultural and local attributes, by fulfilling the necessities that the organization obliges. In this study, the understanding of the cittaslow notion in Turkey and Austria is collated, along with analyzing and determining the differences of the cities of countries that are the member of European Union. The research population is comprised of the slow cities in world and Turkey and the cittaslow cities of Seferihisar (Turkey) and Horn (Austria) are chosen to be the research samples. The data is collected by utilizing the qualitative interviewing research technique and interviews have been conducted with the cittaslow officers of Seferihisar and Horn. The questions of the interviews were comprised of the cittaslow criteria, which have been used to analyze the endeavors that the aforementioned cities achieved. As a finding of this study, it has been determined that Seferihisar has fulfilled many of the criteria after the decision process, and aimed to become one of the distinguished cities throughout the world. As Horn is already a member of European Union, it had achieved many of the cittaslow criteria. As result of this study, the compatibility of Seferihisar and Horn to the cittaslow criteria varies by population, environmental issues, climate and development level