Slow Cities…

This is cool:

http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=09-P13-00047&segmentID=4

It’s an article about a town in British Columbia that is officially designated as a “Slow City,” with no fast food, no big box stores, ample pedestrian walkways, and a whole different attitude toward living.

I like it.

At the same time I’m a little ambivalent about it; I love the idea, but my life is so not conducive to the concept, you know?  I have places go to, schedules to keep, and sometimes you just gotta cut the corners, right? Right?

On the other hand…if I lived in a city like this, my expectations, all of our expectations, would have to be different.  I’m not sure I always take into account the role peer pressure plays in all the areas where my greenness fails.  I want to keep up with the other moms, I want to Get it Right, I want to do my part, I want to fit in. (The fact that I’ve never fit in, anywhere, in my entire life, is sort of immaterial here, I guess.  Except when I can find other un-fit-in-ables to hang with, and we make our own little island of misfit toys…)

Wouldn’t it be cool if peer pressure could work the other way? If it has to work at all?  If the world around us were shaped and formed in a way that made walking easy, cooking a pleasure, scheduling more balanced, garbage-generation rare, and respect for the planet and each other just sort of a given, would it be easier? I really believe it would…

Maybe we could even bring back the concept of the afternoon nap.  Utopia. (And think of the electricity we’d save!)

Sigh.