Slow Cities?: The Revitalisation of Shrinking Communities in Japan

Slow Cities?: The Revitalisation of Shrinking Communities in Japan

Thursday, 10 March 2016 - 9:30am to 4:45pm
Venue: 
Pavilion Room, 4th Floor, Gateway Building, St. Antony's College, Oxford
Speaker(s): 
Professor Gert-Jan Hospers, Radboud University, University of Twente
Mr Pier Giorgio Oliveti, General Secretariat, Cittaslow International
Ms Heuishilja Chang, PhD student, University of Oxford
Professor Hirokazu Sakuno, Shimane University
Dr Peter Matanle, University of Sheffield
Dr Taro Hirai, Hirosaki University
Convenor: 
Professor Sho Konishi, Professor Hugh Whittaker and Professor Ian Neary
Series: 
Nissan Seminar

Cittaslow (Slow City) is a rural development movement of small towns started in Italy in 1999.  The movement aims to improve their quality of life and sustainability by emphasizing the individual towns’ unique identities, the local asset-based economy, and by promoting an eco-friendly environment.  Cittaslow has rapidly grown into a transnational phenomenon.  In recent years, the movement has attracted increasing interest from shrinking towns in EU countries as a community revitalisation instrument.  In Japan, Chihō-sōsei (regional revitalisation) has been a top policy agenda, to create strategies for improving the quality of life in shrinking communities.  Various actors have developed different forms in movements to (re)settle in country side.   This workshop offers an opportunity for a transnational dialogue between scholars and practitioners of Japanese revitalization programmes, and key participants of the Cittaslow movement.

A full copy of the programme for the day can be viewed here.