Cinque Terre

Cinque Terre (literally, ‘five lands’) is a set of towns along the Mediterranean coast of Italy connected by a walking path. They can also be accessed by car or boat, but most visitors use a combination of trains and hiking to explore the towns. I’ve even heard that the resident population of Manorola has a higher rate of boat ownership than of automobiles.

The villages are an interesting exercise in small community survival tactics, although I don‘t think they would identify themselves as an ‘intentional community‘. Their bread and butter is the seasonal tourism and fishing/farming industries, in that order. To help with large influxes of visitors, there is very good public transit to and from each town. People who live there were intertwined with the tourists - their mutual dependence seemed obvious to both. For example, we found a place to stay only because a local tried to rent us a room when he saw we were carrying a tourist guide book. Turns out the place we were originally looking for was run (and built) by his cousin who was on the other end of a cell phone thrust at me a minute later.

A large part of the income generated in Cinque Terre seems to stay in Cinque Terre - the only advertisements I saw were for local businesses, often in hand-painted signs. The way to find the best restaurant is to ask someone who lives there. Some of the seasonal restaurant owners did live elsewhere during the slow season, which attributes for some capital attrition.

The towns of Cinque Terre are difficult to drive to and park in. More automobile access might provide a longer tourist season, but would certainly alter the character that attracts people in the first place. Nor is it easy to manage the seasonal income from tourism. It requires some budgeting and allowing for certain governmental regulations that aren’t always beneficial to small, seasonal businesses. One store owner was required by his business license to remain open for 9 months out of the year, even though it would have been more profitable to only be open for 6 (many of his products have a shelf-life; when his supply outpaces the demand there is a significant amount of waste).

Many of the intentional and eco-villages we’ve encountered are an exercise in managing trade-offs such as Cinque Terre‘s seasonal dilemmas: restore an existing (inefficient) structure OR build a new one? Attract lots of people and grow quickly OR be very specific about inhabitants and grow slowly, if at all? Perhaps the answer is in how to change the ORs to ANDs.