An alternative livable city approach to homogen cities of globalizaton: Slow cities (Cittaslow)

An increasing number of towns are joining the Cittaslow movement, founded with the aim of protecting cities from the homogenisation brought about by globalization, as well as to carry local features and traditional products into the future. The alternative city movement Cittaslow emerged out of the Slow Food movement with the aim of preventing the standardisation of regional/local characteristics, as a result of globalization. Since its establishment in 1999, Cittaslow Movement is a model of sustainable local development that boasts a total of 262 members in 30 countries and territorial areas. The movement, which started with Seferihsar's becoming a member of International Cittaslow Association in 2009, now is expanding in Turkey with 17 member towns. The culture of daily life which has a centuries long history here, played an important role for a city in winning this title. Today the cittaslow movement requires each applicant city to have a population of less than 50.000 but adoption of new metropol cittaslow idea by all members with their support, in the near future the population criteria will not be a feature for being a candidate. The purpose of this study is to examine the success of cittaslow philosophy through examples and to introduce an alternative approach to the creation of more sustainable living systems and quality of life in cities against globalization. Keywords: Globalization, homogenization, sustainable local development, quality of life, slow city, cittaslow, slow food, slow movement.