Seven Slow Movements And Memes That Can Change Our Lives
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 08. 6.08
It all started with slow food, a movement "that was founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world." Slow Food: Small, Simple, Sustainable
But is is a meme that has caught on, the idea that you take it slow, do it carefully, do it right and take the time to enjoy it. The idea can be applied to almost anything we do in life.
The Slow Home
Architect John Brown proposes the Slow Home. "Suburban sprawl is like fast food; cheap and easy but also unsatisfying and boring." says the intro Slow Home, which says "takes its name from the slow food movement which arose as a reaction to the processed food industry. In the same ways that slow food helps people learn how to become more familiar and involved with the food they eat, Slow Home provides design focused information to empower individuals to step beyond the too fast world of cookie cutter housing. " He provides ten steps to find the true slow home, including Go Local, Go Green, Go Small and Go Simple. ::Slow Home
Slow Cities
It is an outgrowth of the slow food movement and like it, started in Italy. According to Der Spiegel, "Slow City" advocates argue that small cities should preserve their traditional structures by observing strict rules: cars should be banned from city centers; people should eat only local products and use sustainable energy. In these cities, there's not much point in looking for a supermarket chain or McDonald's. Slow Cities Spreading Fast
Slow Travel
It is happening in Sweden, where 8,000 charter trips were offered this summer, "not just eager eco-travel buffs snapping up the train charter trips, but also a heretofore untapped group of travelers afraid to fly, as well as recent retirees who are nostalgic for the longer train trips of their childhood." Slow Trains Heading South
Slow Flying
We note the return of the propeller, which uses a lot less fuel and flies lower. "Fifty years ago, a flight to Europe from New York meant a stop in Gander, Reykjavik and Shannon- it was slow, it was low, but you got there in a day. For domestic or European flying, it seems completely obvious. Perhaps we don't need to stop flying, we just have to slow down and enjoy the trip. Perhaps Flying Turboprop isn't Dying
Slow Design
"Slow Design, much like its gastronomic predecessor, is all about pulling back on the reins and taking time to do things well, do them responsibly, and do them in a way that allows the designer, the artisan and the end user to derive pleasure from it.
Just like Slow Food, it's all about using local ingredients, harvested and put together in a socially and environmentally responsible way. Above all, it emphasizes thoughtful, methodical, slow creation and consumption of products as a way to combat the sometimes overwhelming pace of life in the bigger-faster-now 21st century." Jargon Watch: Slow Design
Slow Fashion
"Fast fashion involves a sort of democratization of style. Runway looks are reproduced as quickly as possible for consumers with Target, Old Navy, and H&M budgets. Designers like Marc Jacobs franchise second and third lines, allowing the masses an opportunity to buy a bit of mystique. The garments don't have to last, since the styles are ephemeral. This translates to resource-intensive, disposable clothing. As with food, there's little emphasis on who made a garment and how, or the social and environmental effects.
The slow food movement has focused on making connections between the way a morsel is grown, and how it tastes, helping us reflect on how our consumer choices relate to human and eco impacts through transparency about origins. At London Fashion Week, designers at the Estethica exhibit used similar language to describe design and production processes. Slow fashion means clothing and accessories that start with thoughtfully-chosen beginnings, are constructed by well-paid individuals, and are meant to remain wearable for years to come."Slow Food, Slow Fashion
Slow Cars
Our own contribution. " Perhaps, like the slow food movement, we need a slow car movement, a radical lowering of the speed limit so that the private car can survive in an era of peak oil and global warming, simply by being smaller and slower.
We don't need hydrogen cars and new technology, we just need better, smaller designs, lower speed limits and no big SUVs on the road to squish them." Small Cars "Almost Cheaper Than Walking"
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The thing that everyone with more money than the
average joe seems to keep forgetting is that all this
slow stuff is majorly expensive, and that's the whole point.
Everyone these days has their mouths full of good design and
good housing and eco this and that, but they seem to forget
how expensive design is these days and how expensive 'eco'
vegstables etc are.
Slow food may be better but more expensive, and how else can
you afford all these things than to work for it all day. And how much time do you have left before you have to go to bed to go and work for your money. I don't really believe there is enough time left for slow stuff.
I fin it so sad that things that are so well thought off and beautiful get the 'design' label, what instantly seems to justify the way too high price. Everyone keeps nagging on about houw standerised everything is, but that's because everything that isn't is just not affordable for a normal working person.
"The thing that everyone with more money than the
average joe seems to keep forgetting is that all this
slow stuff is majorly expensive, and that's the whole point."
What a crock of crap.
As one who has lived "the slow life" for more than a decade, I can tell you from strict firsthand experience--as well as the experiences of my friends--that "the slow life" is much cheaper than this erstwhile defender of the status quo; that it requires less energy, hence less cash; that it is creativity-intensive and so does not waste time on frivolities--like suburbia, for example.
It would be helpful if the reader above actually tried living this life before passing judgment on it. But I'm not surprised: when confronted with such "radical" ideas as the Slow Movement, the defenders of Earth's Destruction ultimately resort to screaming about how expense it will be to do things differently, ie, sanely.
And there you go.
It is more expensive, no one is arguing that. You have to decide if you want a lot of cheap stuff, or fewer high quality things. If you like to buy and throw away then the first option is for you, if not, then maybe it is worth more to work hard for a great meal you will remember while working hard the next week.
I agree with Pieter to a certain extent. However I don't go to special organic markets for my food, we go directly to our local farmer who sells directly to the public from the side of his house (common in rural Italy).
For 5 euro ($7) we got:
half a kilo of cheese
half a kilo of zuchini
two head of lettuce (freshly picked from the field)
six or seven large tomatoes
four onions
a melon
@ Pieter Jan Rosiers:
I hear what you are saying, but I think that there are some keys that you are not considering when you see this exorbitant price difference. Yes some well-designed items are excessively priced, but let's look at the flip-side: cheap non-eco products.
Where are they coming from? Are the manufactured in the US, Canada or Western Europe, where labor and environmental laws are reasonably strong and the cost of labor is reasonably high? For the most part, they aren't. Have you ever tried to avoid products made in Asia? It's near impossible, and that really is the crux of the matter. Large companies, which have basically become nothing more than marketers since they outsource almost all production, find the cheapest source of production. More often than not this lands them in China or another Asian country, sometimes in Mexico or another Central or South American country, where labor laws are lax and environmental laws are even more so. It's no surprise that 33% of greenhouse gas emissions in China are attributed to manufacture of products for export!!!! Of course, this business model is somewhat predicated on the availability of cheap fuel to ship items from far off lands to their intended markets.
Food is another interesting issue. Much of the "conventional" food sold in the US is either from California, which is nowhere near my NYC home, or Latin America (though China is also entering the game), where DDT among other products is still used to crop dust. The labor in California is nearly all migrant, and they are payed next to nothing, thus keeping costs down. Sure, large market organics are also produced in California, but as far as I'm concerned this does not fall in the slow movement at all. Local and organic produce and meat cost a lot more for a lot of reasons. These are generally produced on smaller farms, farms which are not getting heavy subsidies that agribusiness is getting, so their prices are probably more indicative of the actual cost of the product, whereas the other stuff is priced artificially low because of subsidies. Before you assume that everything is overpriced, take into consideration what makes everything else so cheap. Sure, economies of scale play a role, but sweatshop labor and government subsidies play a huge role. Their profit margins are probably as great if not greater than the higher priced products you are referring to. It's a tough reality, but my personal opinion is that I am paying a more honest price for "slow stuff" as you call it, than the $5 T-shirt that you can buy at Wal-Mart.
Well, all of you made great points that are very true indeed
and a lot of people (including me) need to be convinced of
the long term benefit and need to see that there *is* one.
Therefore we need a change in our mentality and the way we
look at-and thing about things.
But I still do think that a mom working three jobs, just to be able
to feed her children and has no time for herself at all isn't going
to go slow anytime soon. That's what I meant when I said it was
only for privilleged people.
And: "It would be helpful if the reader above actually tried living this life before passing judgment on it. But I'm not surprised: when confronted with such "radical" ideas as the Slow Movement, the defenders of Earth's Destruction ultimately resort to screaming about how expense it will be to do things differently, ie, sanely."
Defenders of Earth's Destruction. Give me a break. You watched too many sci-fi movies. You just have to consider
that for the largest part of earth's population it *is* more expensive on a day-to-day basis. There are a lot of people who cannot save money and need to work their asses of just to buy the 'fast' food. That's what I meant.
Yes, I agree that organic and environmentally safe items are more expensive at this time. However, I can also remember when it was a bargain to buy a new PC for under $3000.
You don't have to "buy" from those sources. No one is making you. For us average "Joes" who can not afford to go 100% organic and environmental it is a choice of what we can afford right now and what we can do outside the box.
I for one planted a garden in my yard. I also started large shallow bowl planters with lettuce seeds. I have an abundance of fresh produce right now. What I can't use immediately or store for future use, I trade with locals for other items. Too many tomatoes were traded for plums.
With good weather, I walk 2-miles to work instead of riding the bus and enjoy the added health benefits. I found a local source for rain barrels that are a fraction of the cost of those being sold by the chain stores.
This year my vacation was spent exploring on foot the city that I live. I discovered hidden gems and now I wish I had indulged in my walking vacation sooner. These are places that I can re-visit throughout the year, instead of waiting until I return on my next vacation to some distant spot. By living every day as a vacation I have found a new outlook on life.
The upswing to this is the mere fact -- you don't need lots of money to live a "slow" life. You just need to be creative in your choices.
Voluntary simplicity is always cheaper: that's the beauty of it. Individual items are more expensive, but you save in the long run by not buying useless junk.
As a side note, since "slow food" was originally coined as a counterpoint to "fast food," I'm not sure this term translates well to other products. I get the concept, but who ever heard of fast clothes?
Well, it depends on how you look at it or how it's implemented.
When you say slow is more expensive, that's not looking at the whole picture.
A slow house uses less material and labor, you can even build it yourself with the help of some family or friends, using local material like earth from your own land.
Slow food may be more expensive because it's rare now, but when it used to be the only food available, it was cheaper than what fast is nowadays.
Slow design may be more expensive when you pay for it, but it has, like old things, a longer life than the disposable everything that is -mostly- only available now.
Slow cars spend less in fuel, are easier to move around in the city, even parking it is simpler. They are also prettier is you apply some slow design rather than the ugly models of late decades.
So it just depends on how you look at it, and I think that I'm not looking at it in a wrong way. Many may not agree with me, but many will.
I love the idea of slow stuff! Sure some of it may be more expensive, but like most people point out, the only reason stuff is cheap is because it's made by slaves. Cheap stuff is also made using destructive methods to the earth, using toxic chemicals, unsustainably taking raw materials from the earth.
We're stuck in a consumer society where we want want want, take take take without a thought to the consequences. 100 years ago kids were probably lucky to have a chest full of locally hand made wooden toys, nowadays they have huge rooms full of plastic junk they get bored of in five minutes. The same goes for adults, we hoarde so much junk and go through products so quickly it's rediculous.
If we buy less, rather that lots of junk we don't need which gets thrown away within 6 months, we could afford to buy nicer, locally made products. Even buying more second hand goods is better than buying new, cheaper to.
All of us personally wouldn't want to be paid 5c an hour, live in terrible conditions, be poisoned by the products we're producing. So why should we complain about things that are locally made being expensive.
Labor in the organic fields is not cheap, underpaid stuff. The organic movement gave a voice to the laborers and they should and are paid decent wages. But still, no American will do the job. You couldn't afford the food if labor was paid a living wage. A terrible conundrum.
Slow food, made with some thought, is far healthier than "fast food". So one gets the health benefits of better protein, better vitamins, more fiber, less fat, etc, etc. So really, slow food is both cheaper and healthier. And not so difficult or time consuming. Put some beans in the crock-pot before you leave for work, cut up some greens for a salad, and voila, you have a healthy, inexpensive supper that is so much better for the planet than McDonalds. Better for both you and your pocket book also.
Quality time
I think 'slow' is not good for everything. I mean I don't want an slow computer, and I don't think I would enjoy riding an slow subway. But I think that there are parts of our lives that can really gain value just by giving them enough time to be. Having breakfast with the family, walking the dog, teaching the children, giving them time to grow, taking time to heal from a loss, taking time to know people, choosing what to buy and what no to buy in the market, and of course during design and development of new ideas.
I think the slow movement intends to actually give things their time. No less. We need to be fair with time. Any way, the time is a resource as any other we spend. That's why maybe we should call this 'quality time movement'.
In the not too recent past the cost of essentials like food and housing used to consume a greater proportion of our income compared to what we spend on the same today.
Food has become cheaper even though it comes from farther away, clothing, consumer items, the same thing has happened. But there are trade-offs. Frakenfoods, chemicals, less nutrition, loss of local agriculture and associated jobs...
It's all about what is important. Drop the cell phone account and purchase a car that is less expensive to operate and viola, more money for the important stuff. Live in a smaller house, possibly less spent on utilities. Take public transit or walk, Buy direct from the farmer not the supermarket.
There is no need for excuses, there is nothing to figure out, it is all there.