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  3. Just outside the northern Italian town of Bra, there rises a church tower with a clock that is a half hour slow. In Bra, that’s

Just outside the northern Italian town of Bra, there rises a church tower with a clock that is a half hour slow. In Bra, that’s

admin2009-04-10  26
问题     Just outside the northern Italian town of Bra, there rises a church tower with a clock that is a half hour slow. In Bra, that’s close enough to being tight on time. Though not far from the industrial city of Turin, Bra smells of roses, and leisure is the law. It is both the home of an international movement that promotes "slow food" (the opposite of American fast food) and one of 31 Italian municipalities that have joined a sister cause, the "slow cities." These cities have declared themselves paradises from the accelerating pace of life in the global economy. In Bra, population 27,866, the town fathers have declared that all small food shops be closed every Thursday and Sunday. They forbid cars in the town square. All fruits and vegetables served in local schools must be organic. The city offers cut-rate mortgages to homeowners who do up their houses using a local butter-colored material and reserves choice commercial real estate for family shops selling handmade chocolates or specialty cheeses. And if the movement leaders get their way, the slow conception will gradually spread across Europe.
    The argument for a Slow Europe is not only that slow is good, but also that it can work. The Slow City movement, which started in 1999, has turned around local economies by promoting local goods and tourism. Young Italians are moving from larger cities to Bra, where Unemployment is only 5 percent, about half the nationwide rate. Slow food and wine festivals draw thousands of tourists every year. Shops are thriving, many with sales rising at a rate of 15 percent per year. "This is our answer to globalization," says Paolo Saturnini, the founder of Slow Cities.
    France is the favored proving ground for supporters of what might be called slow economics. Most outsiders have long been doubtful of the French model: short hours and long vacations. Yet the French are more productive on an hourly basis than counterparts in the United States and Britain, and have been for years.
    The mystery of French productivity has fueled a Europe-wide debate about the merits of working more slowly.
选项 A、industrial development
B、slow movement
C、global economy
D、city growth
答案B
解析
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