Connected is Beautiful. Transnational Cooperation Among Towns for a Post-Growth Future.

Although policy-makers of different political persuasions at all governmental levels have voiced the need to address the contemporary socio-ecological crisis, decisive actions have not been taken yet. However, at local level, a growing number of organisations have endeavoured to move away from an entirely growth-centred society. From urban networks to grassroots groups, local post-growth initiatives striving to radically tackle socio-ecological issues abound. Albeit sharing the critique of the myth of infinite growth, local post-growth experiences differ considerably. These groups may draw on a clear-cut political ideology, or have a pragmatic approach to building an alternative society with no or controlled growth. Additionally, some groups are engaged in purely locally-based activities, while others are organised in international networks. Among the latter, two networks of towns experimenting with post-growth alternatives have gained a distinctive reputation: Transition Towns and Slow Cities. Whereas the former network pivots around the notion of transition and promotes local sustainability and resilience, the latter seeks to counteract globalisation by preserving local specificities and ‘slow’ life-styles. Both networks foster collective action to better tackle specific socio-economic and environmental challenges that many towns face - e.g. climate change, disruption of social fabric, food provision, wipeout of local businesses. While these networks have been studied individually, there is limited research comparing them. To address this lack of research, in this paper we undertake a comparative analysis of Transition Towns and Slow Cities. To provide an in-depth insight, we zoom our analysis on Western European countries, where we map, scrutinise and compare the membership of the two post-growth networks. To do so, we carry out a quantitative and a social network analysis to identify the actors and scales involved in these transnational local networks and to measure the strength of their cooperative linkages. The results will throw light on the connections built by member-towns embracing a post-growth philosophy, disentangling the intricate web of cooperative relations threaded in Western Europe to pave the way for a more ecological society.