Cittaslow Logo
Originally published January of 2011, edited and updated for republication today.
Before we can have discussion, we must define our terms. If you are already familiar with the Cittaslow Movement and it’s governing principles, please skip down. If Cittaslow is new to you, please take time to read and understand before going on.
Cittaslow; (CHEATAH-slow)
From the Italian “citta” meaning city and English “slow”. It’s a new trend in living that started in the Italian city of Orvieto. The Charter was signed on 15 October 1999 by Carlo Petrini, founder and chairman of Slow Food, and the mayors of the Italian towns of Bra, Greve in Chianti, Positano and Orvieto, which were the movement’s foundation. Horrified by the prospect of seeing a McDonald’s or a Walmart in their 1000+ year old town, action was taken at the local level.
The Charter identifies a Cittaslow town as one in which ;
- A policy is in place to help maintain and develop the distinctiveness and characteristics of the town and the surrounding area. Regeneration and re-use are priorities, rather than modernization and redevelopment for the sake of change.
- A policy on the built environment encourages enhancement of the area rather than development that is insensitive to history, tradition and the needs of people.
- Technologies that are aimed at improving the fabric of life and the facilities of the town are used in ways that embrace and enhance quality and tradition.
- Traditional local products that might be under threat are supported and promoted to ensure their continued existence for the enjoyment of future generations.
- Products – not just food and drink – which have roots in local culture and tradition and which help to differentiate the local area and make it unique are celebrated and safeguarded. Consumers are encouraged to support and buy from local artisan producers through markets, fairs and other activities that keep consumers in direct contact with makers and producers.
- High standards of hospitality are promoted making sure that visitors and local people are encouraged to make the most of all that the town and its hinterland has to offer.
- Everyone who works in, lives in or visits the town, and particularly young people, are encouraged to develop an awareness and understanding of quality of life and excellence in food, drink, conviviality and the value of their local traditions, products and production methods.
From the Cittaslow Manifesto: “towns where men are still curious of the old times, towns rich of theatres, squares, cafes, workshops, restaurants and spiritual places, towns with untouched landscapes and charming craftsman where people are still able to recognize the slow course of the Seasons and their genuine products respecting tastes, health and spontaneous customs….”
Commentary:
Here in Cowichan Bay, we lay claim to being North America’s first Cittaslow community. The official ceremony complete with ribbon cutting was held on September 18, 2009. There was the expected flurry of positive media coverage, it’s not every town in Canada that is able to qualify as a “slow” community. Some of it was a bit on the excessive side. From Sunset.com: “Meet Cowichan Valley, an undiscovered land in British Columbia where food is ultra-local, vineyards are low-key, and canoes replace taxicabs.”
What nonsense.
Anyone who lives in Cowichan Bay Village for more than a few days comes to realize that there is actually very little locally sourced food in our few shops and market stalls. Much of what can be found, is bought by the visitors who drive up from Victoria and take it back home. The visitors consider it a treat, something special to be savored and not a regular grocery-cart item.
Five to Seven of these a day at peak season
We of the Village understand that plenty of what is served in the Bay’s markets comes in from the distributor by 18 wheeler, that which graces the tables of our restaurants comes in on the back of the Sysco truck and that canoes have not yet and are unlikely ever to replace the automobile in this community, in spite of our horrendous summertime parking problems. We have a 30km/h speed limit through the village center, often ignored, and that’s as far as it goes.
Since that auspicious beginning in 2009, not much else has happened with regard to the Cittaslow movement in Cowichan Bay. A few signs were put up, a website was created and a lot of press material was handed out to the media.
Without the tourists and visitors, virtually all of whom arrive in gas gobbling automobiles (and expect to find a place to park once they get here), Cowichan Bay Village would become a cute little ghost town virtually overnight.
This community is wholly and entirely dependent on gasoline and diesel fuel for every penny it makes.
The 100 mile diet isn’t something we’d easily qualify for. We see deliveries of oysters from Fanny Bay a place here on the Island. This is great until you realize that Fanny Bay oysters are first shipped to Victoria before they come here, and occasionally make it all the way to Vancouver before being rerouted. Flour from Saskatchewan, potatoes from the Frazer Valley, fruit and vegetables from California and Mexico, souvenirs from China. It all winds up here to be sold to visitors.
The locals buy their groceries from the Country Grocer, Great Greens, the Superstore or Safeway in Duncan or the Walmart on the far side of Duncan. Very few of us actually walk or cycle to the Village proper to do our weekly shopping, something which would be considered a practice completely in line with Cittaslow principles.
One of the considerations in qualifying for Cittaslow certification, is that there be no franchises, fast food outlets or big box stores in the community. True enough, but there they are no more than 15 minutes away by car and we use them all the time.
How all this integrates with the seven Cittaslow principles is not easily understood. There is no provision in place for “Relying on a nearby community for all those things not exactly desirable in a Cittaslow community, or which would disqualify the community from Cittaslow certification.”
One thing is certain; Without the steady stream of 36, 48 and 53 foot tractor trailer and 5 ton delivery trucks, there wouldn’t be anything to sell to visitors once they get here, and selling things to the visitors has become the business of Cowichan Bay.
There is nothing inherently wrong with all this, these are modern methods of supply, but the facts need to be recognized before one gets carried away by such syrupy tones as expressed in Sunset magazine. Otherwise, Cittaslow Cowichan Bay and the merchants who support it become an exercise in hypocrisy.
The facts as they stand must also be recognized as one considers that some traditional and non-traditional industry is embraced under local Cittaslow oversight, while other equally or even more locally traditional forms of earning a living have been declared taboo.
Some Cittaslow principles have been readily adopted in Cowichan Bay, others have been decidedly less so, or so narrowly interpreted as to make them irrelevant. For example, while the first, second and sixth of the principles have been embraced by many in the community, the seventh, fifth, third and particularly the fourth appear more difficult to implement.
Quoting the fourth principle again, we read: “Traditional local products that might be under threat are (to be) supported and promoted to ensure their continued existence for the enjoyment of future generations.”
It’s easy to see how this is applied with regard to local dairy products, freshly baked breads and tourist deli lunches, yet there is difficulty in finding the same zeal for the protection of traditional local industries such as boat-building, shipyards, fish processing, forestry and saw-milling. These traditional forms of enterprise have fallen out of favor to such an extent, that in the village proper, they are represented in token form only, for the benefit of our weekend and summer visitors. Meanwhile what industry remains in the Bay, across the water from the village, has been the target of endless campaigning in order to have it driven out.
The promotion and support of a museum of maritime history is not the same thing as promoting and supporting the maritime industry itself, which is what the Cittaslow principles actually call for.
The Traditional Business of Cowichan Bay
You have to remember that Cowichan Bay as it looks today, is a rather recent invention. It was traditionally an industrial town with a diverse and broadly based income structure. It was hardly it’s current incarnation of a lightly gentrified tourist haven. Yet Cittaslow principles are for everyone’s benefit, not just for those who operate restaurants, coffee shops, bakeries, gift boutiques and guest houses. All the community’s traditional local trades and occupations fall under Cittaslow protection and application of the seven principles. You either are, or are not a Cittaslow community. You can’t pick some principles to embrace and leave out a host of others.
Still, some citizens, many of whom have their lifetime’s work already behind them, think that the suppression of our traditional industries and thereby the financial suppression of our young people, is just fine.
Our community is in danger of losing touch with it’s past identity and suffers an increasing inability to develop in a sensible, sustainable manner. We have been regressing in fact, not moving forward. There is only so much room for coffee shops, restaurants, bakeries and guest houses here in Cowichan Bay. It has become, if anything not a bedroom community, but a dining room community. If Cowichan Bay is ever to aspire to more than merely catering to visitors who come more often in fair weather than foul, there must be a more diverse financial base on which to build.
We ought to follow the Cittaslow guidelines and strive to protect traditional ways and forms of making a living here, even if they don’t exactly mesh with the plans of those who would turn our Bay into a second Steveston.
A reasonable mix of both service industry and light industry is needed to give a sure financial footing. Properly done, bearing in mind the ecologically responsible principles as outlined in the Cittaslow Charter, the two can work together and indeed, compliment one-another. This co-operation then providing the jobs and opportunity that will attract young working artisans of all sorts once more to this community.
It must be remembered that currently, it is nearly impossible for the average young person to work in Cowichan Bay and expect to buy or even rent a home in the same local neighborhood he or she may have grown up in, such is the gap between tourist and service industry based earnings and the cost of local real-estate. These are the very people we need to attract in order to secure a vibrant community in years to come.
So in the end what does Cittaslow mean to Cowichan Bay? Is it a series of principles designed to ensure a decent standard of living for all the community’s inhabitants, both the land based and the waterborne? Will it foster a climate for generating opportunities to live, work and reside in this community with dignity? Is Cittaslow something we can embrace as our guide to a prosperous yet socially and environmentally responsible future?
Or is it just another clever marketing campaign aimed at attracting and soothing the tourists, for the benefit of a select few business owners and their local, and not so local suppliers?
Finally, I’d like to leave you with this as a thought: From the announcement of the Cittaslow Annual General Meeting this year, and ask you the question: “When all is said and done, what exactly is Cittaslow after all, and why do we find it so difficult to follow it’s simple rules?”
