Slow Villages are sustainable...
Socially, Fiscally, Ecologically, Spiritually...
                                                                            
Slow Villages are communities that:     
- buy locally produced products
- gather spontaneously without cars
- people visit and want to stay
- are diverse

Slow Villages are communities where:
- there are compelling artistic and recreational opportunities
- car travel is minimized because people work and shop locally
- communities care for their residents and the land around them
- affordable housing available to a wide range of income levels
- in an emergency, people stay to help others

No one goes hungry in a Slow Village, if they want to eat
No one goes lonely in a Slow Village, if they want company

The theory is that if you slow down, and think and spend time with one another, and concentrate on being "good stewards of your resources", that you will create a society that is sustainable, fiscally, ecologically, and spiritually.

In a Slow Village, people recycle, reuse, or better yet REFUSE to USE!

Slow Villages are towns that grow slowly enough that they can manage growth gracefully. 

What is "sustainable"?  It's different for every village.  Growth takes a lot of work and money to sustain.  And often public support systems find themselves either broke, or unable to support "regular" people because their taxes become too high.  So a Slow Village helps slowww everyone down to a pace that is manageable.

Does your town care for its poor, its hungry, its homeless?  How do you know?

Often a town doesn't even know that it has people that are slipping through the cracks. Often a town just keeps adding fancy services and increasing taxes and driving out the lower income folks or just driving them bankrupt, as rents and other fees increase beyond their ability to pay.  This "underclass" gets poorer and poorer and works harder and harder to stay alive.

Meanwhile, government systems grow out of control, taxes rise beyond the natural income growth rate, and price pressures require richer people to move in.  So income diversity exists...it's just a two class system.

It's not always apparent that growth costs money, until it's too late.  It's not always obvious that you're going broke til you're beyond the point of graceful repair.  That goes for spirtual and environmental resources, not just broke in the financial sense.

Sustainable growth is that level of growth that a community's resources can support in the planning horizon. 

The idea is to try to learn to survive off of as little growth as possible so that we have the time create sustainable methods for survival.  In the nutritional world, this is considered a fast.  Every once in a while, it's good to cleanse one's digestive system and minimize intake.   These methods include satisfying financial, food, artistic, recreational, and spiritual needs with a minimum use of carbon.  Slow Villages are places where people come to visit and stay.  They are places where young people and old people all want to be and can afford to be. 

To help develop these concepts, or provide interesting links/resources, please contact Terra at Info at Terra dotcom.
Thank you for caring!

We CAN
do it all!