Slowing down’ in small and medium-sized towns

Cittaslow in Germany and Italy from a social innovation perspective

Bibliographic Data

ID7366820
AuthorsAriane Sept (0000-0002-8691-1950, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume8
Issue1
Pages259-268
Publication date2021-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueRegional Studies Regional Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2168-1376 • E-ISSN: 2168-1376
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/21681376.2021.1919190
OpenAlexW3167961238
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited14

Smaller towns in rural regions are important anchors for regional development, but they are not usually considered particularly innovative and open to new ideas. This paper asks how the network of small and medium-sized towns, Cittaslow, could establish slowing down as something new in local development. Against the theoretical background of sociological innovation research, an analytical framework of social innovation is elaborated to analyse Cittaslow using four case studies: two German and two Italian towns. Based on fieldwork in the four towns, this paper shows that discourse and communication on slowing down, local projects labelled as slow and new cooperation structures go hand in hand. This leads to the conclusion that new ways of local development need a communicative umbrella under which projects and stakeholders come together. The paper furthermore demonstrates that the analytical framework, with its triad of semantics, pragmatics and grammar, is extremely helpful for analysing spatial development and has the potential to be adapted as a tool for policy strategies

Economic geography · Geography · German · Grammar · Knowledge management · Linguistics · Local Development · Perspective (graphical · Pragmatics · Regional development · Regional science · Social science · Sociology · Triad (sociology · Computer Science · Sustainable Urban and Rural Development

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