Please be aware that this event was postponed. We will inform you about the new date.
We are sorry for any inconvenience caused.

June 13, 2017. In collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute in Amsterdam.

This meeting will be split into two parts. The first part will introduce us to the Italian experience and in particular to the effective CittàSlow model. In the second part, we will talk about the use of bicycles and analyze its related benefits with an eye to the relevant Dutch experience.

We will begin describing a knowledge and technology transfer from Italy to the Netherlands by analyzing the CittàSlow (or ‘Slow-City’) model, a spin off of the Slow-Food movement. The Mayor of Midden-Delfland, A.J. Rodenburg, will introduce us to the topic with a brief presentation of his personal experience of this Italian model. Then, we’ll move to another project that implemented the Slow-City criteria: this was executed in the Dutch municipality of Alphen-Chaam by Claudia Basta as the supervisor of university students who performed a research work in the context of the Spatial planning and landscape design course at the Wageningen University (WUR). Claudia will illustrate the most significant aspects of this project highlighting how it was welcomed in the Netherlands and then relocated to the municipality of Midden-Delfland, which has now assumed the role of “Dutch capital of the international Slow-City movement”, thanks to the opening of the local administration and the attention obtained by the Dutch national media around the city network.

In the second part of this interesting conference, we will tackle the topic of cycling mobility in the Netherlands, trying to overcome the clichés that in other countries like Italy currently limit the investment in this transport system. Do the Dutch people cycle for a purely cultural question? Are they cycling because there is a dedicated infrastructure or because they do not own cars? Is the particular topographic design (the lack of hills, for example) what makes the difference? In this presentation Paolo Ruffino will address all of these questions and more, illustrating how the factors contributing to the massive cycling in The Netherlands are much more multi-shaped and complex than we think. Starting with an historical excursus, Paolo will finally come to what Italy and other countries can learn from the Dutch experience and what the economic benefits of a widespread use of bicycles can be, also highlighting some Italian projects that are emerging as a result of this technology transfer from The Netherlands to Italy.