Recently, the International Cittaslow (slow city) Annual Conference was held in San Angelo of Italy. At the conference, Longbo Town in Shuangpai County, Yongzhou City, Hunan Province was recognized as a “Cittaslow” by the Cittaslow International head office. It has become the 15th cittaslow in China and the first one in Hunan Province.

Cittaslow, a new urban development mode proposed in Italy, emphasizes a way to combine modern technology with traditional lifestyles in modern cities. As of June 2023, there had been 291 slow cities worldwide, distributed in 33 countries and regions.

Shuangpai County, located in the middle of Yongzhou City, is a national key ecological functional area, a pilot county for national forest wellness base construction, and the first Chinese “harmony” cultural city. Shuangpai Longbo Cittaslow, including Liangcun Village, Jiangxi Village, Youli Village, Shabeidian Village, and Xiadeng Village, covers an area of 20.3 square kilometers and has a total population of 14,000.

Longbo Town began its application work for a cittaslow in 2016. Over the past 8 years, Shuangpai County has strengthened its connection with the Gaochun International Cittaslow and promoted the building of Longbo into an international slow city based on green industries such as slow tourism, slow sports, slow travel, and slow catering.

The county has implemented 13 projects in Longbo Town with an investment of 108.8 million yuan in upgrading transportation, environment, and residential water facilities, banned fishing in the Yangtze River for 10 years, managed sand mining in the Riyue Lake, promoted the cittaslow culture through lectures, short videos, as well as other means, and developed tourist attractions as well as agricultural industries such as taro and oil-seed rape to increase the income of local people.

Next, Shuangpai County will continue to advance the integrated development of cittaslow construction and rural revitalization, and make every effort to create the first cittaslow leisure experience area to improve people’s happiness.

责编：王柯沣

一审：王柯沣

二审：唐煜斯

三审：秦慧英

来源：文旅湖南