Why Italian planning is worth studying

ABSTRACT
Italian planning seems to be underestimated outside Italy and the
cause for this is unclear. There may be two possible explanations. On
the one hand, it could be argued that Italian planning is ignored
internationally as the consequence of a lack or of a small number of
international articles about it published in international journals. On
the other hand, it may be the perception that international scholars
have of it, which in part depends on the articles published, but which
means that there have been few attempts to spread knowledge
concerning the practice of planning in Italy. This article provides a
brief account of the development of Italian planning over time and
seeks to emphasise the peculiarities of the discipline in Italy and to
discuss what areas of study offer the best potentials for further studies
either on a comparative basis with other countries or Italy­focused.

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Enzo Falco
PhD Student
Via Flaminia, 72 ­ 00196 ­ Rome, Italy ­ Enzo.Falco@uniroma1.it

Paolo Scattoni
Associate Professor
Via Flaminia, 72 ­ 00196 ­ Rome, Italy ­ Paolo.Scattoni@uniroma1.it
Dipartimento Design, Tecnologia dell’Architettura, Territorio e Ambiente, Sapienza ­ Università di Roma

Dipartimento Design, Tecnologia dell’Architettura, Territorio e Ambiente, Sapienza ­ Università di Roma

ISSN: 2239­267X



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INTRODUCTION
Italian planning is a strange object. On the one hand, the need to manage
some of the most important, if not the most important areas of world cultural
heritage, with universally recognized environmental and landscape values.
On the other hand, there is instead a system of physical development, based
on an antiquated law, that has been the general framework for planning for
nearly seventy years. The institutional level within which urban planning
works is particularly fragile. This is because the planning legislation
currently in force finds its application in eight thousand municipalities
which range in population size from a few tens to millions of inhabitants
(Hine, 1993).
In this institutional framework, in the second half of the twentieth century,
Italy has faced momentous changes that have seen it transform from a
predominantly agricultural country to one based on industrial and services
sectors. So in a few decades a profound transformation took place whereas,
in other European countries, these changes had taken place over a much
longer timescale. The transformation, however, took place in a “low trust”
society where familial phenomena and "patronage" have permeated the
management of the common good, especially at the local level (Giordano,
2006). Further complicating the picture, this kind of “privatization” of the
"common good" has taken different forms in the country. The relatively
recent unification of Italy (1861) determined the merging of states between
which the nature of social and economic relations was profoundly different.
Thus the forms of appropriation for the common good in the south had a
somewhat different form to those of the centre and north. The south has
inherited political relations characterised by forms of patronage which were
inherited from a feudal structure that then has adapted to all attempts of
modernisation. Within this context dark networks of organised crime have
played an important role and affected all aspects of social and political life,
including that of urban planning. Different situations characterised the centre
and north of the country where the phenomena that characterise a low trust



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society have been overcome by means of a long tradition of civic structures
that sometimes have their roots in medieval­type society. Obviously urban
planning has also been influenced by this context.
Regional decentralization, which started in the 1970s, has had good results
for planning. Regions in the north and centre have sometimes been able to
produce planning tools and applications of great interest, even if their
application is not national. Within this framework, the question of whether
Italian planning practice is worthy of study by foreign scholars finds positive
answers, for a number of different reasons. The first and most obvious is that
urban, environmental and landscape planning in Italy is certain to influence
world heritage sites of great historical, cultural and landscape value. The
second reason, from a disciplinary point of view, is that examples of
excellent practice can provide useful information for non­Italian scholars.
This will include experiences of conservation and enhancement of historic
centres. A third area concerns the negative situations found in a low­trust
society. Many scholars have used the Italian experience as a paradigmatic
example of a low­trust society (Giordano, 2006; Chubb, 1982). In these
studies, planning issues are important aspects of those mechanisms.
Surprisingly, however, these studies have been conducted by scholars from
different disciplines while planning scholars seem to neglect them.
The objective of this paper is to demonstrate how the Italian case, through
the analysis of planning practices, may provide useful elements for the
international disciplinary debate, especially in Europe. The paper therefore
consists of three sections. Firstly, there will be a discussion on the perception
of Italian planning in the international literature in order to understand why
and how much our planning is under­represented. Secondly, the basic steps
in the development of Italian planning are introduced in order to provide the
basic background for possible international contributions. Finally, the
arguments for in­depth comparative analyses of planning practices are
highlighted, so as to help overcome a position of isolation in which Italian
planning currently finds itself.



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1. PERCEPTION OF ITALIAN PLANNING
We can distinguish three stages in the perception of the importance of Italian
planning in Europe and especially in Britain, that for most of the last century
was considered as the more frequent and prestigious reference: from the
beginning of the century to the 1950s, from the early 1960s to the mid '80s
and from then until now.
In fact, in the first half of the twentieth century, urban planning in Italy
received considerable attention. In 1915, one of the first works on planning
stated (Alteridge, 1915 p.1):

"The Italian method of obtaining both urban and suburban comprehensive
road and street planning, including street widening, land for public gardens
and squares, etc, may be summed up roughly in a few sentences:­
Corporations and landowners, usually in friendly co­operation, prepare
comprehensive road­schemes to permit orderly growth of the city in every
direction. Owners are paid for all land and property taken. Compensation
is assessed at the value the property and land has when taken, quite apart
from any value given to it by either the proposed or executed works. (...)
Opposition does not appear even to be formidable. Mutual cooperation
between owners and communal council is the general rule. (...) Italian town
planning is not optional, but in practice compulsory for urban communities
of more than 10,000 people".

The perception then was that of a planning system, well­handled by the
government, which was capable of establishing profitable relationship with
private developers. The nineteenth­century model, where the public is
investing in major infrastructures (roads and squares) and makes provision
for private housing development, worked well in Italy, albeit with far more
limited resources than could be invested than those in the wealthier
European countries like France and Britain (Benevolo, 1973).
For many decades the British journal "Town Planning Review", published



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by the Department of Civic Design in the University of Liverpool, was
perhaps the only, certainly the most prestigious, source for information on
urban planning. Italy is very present in the first decades of the journal's life.
Within the Review, Italian planning is frequently cited and positive emphasis
is placed upon it. Articles by Luigi Lenzi (1928, 1929, 1930, 1931) help to
make known the contents of the main city plans; these were often the result
of competitions between national planners.
The experience of the new towns which were founded in the fascist period is
considered an interesting experiment, consistent with emerging theories
about New Towns. The Congress of the International Federation for Housing
and Town Planning, held in Rome in 1929, was a substantial recognition of
the Italian planners’ active role. Moreover, it is interesting to note that this
perception escapes preconceived political judgments on the fascist regime.
The foundation of the National Institute of Urban Planning (INU) in 1930 is
a direct consequence of that event and therefore it is included in the
international context. The focus was not confined to the “Roman” school
that dominated INU but extended to some interesting experiences such as
the Milan Plan (Chiodi, 1926).
Following this trend, in the period after World War II, the interest in Italian
planning is dominated by attention to the Adriano Olivetti Community
Movement (Figure 1). Urban planning has a fundamental role within
Olivetti’s thinking. Olivetti himself, at the time president of the INU, placed
great importance on international relations with the most advanced
international planning experiences. The article of 1952 by Giovanni
Astengo, grown in the Olivetti school, is an interesting overview of the
limits but also of the hopes of Italian planning. The beginning of that article,
addressed to the foreign reader, provides the motivations and methods for
the study of Italian planning that, at present, still retain their validity.



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A general picture of town planning in Italy must be seen in the particular
atmosphere which has developed since the war; and must be introduced by a
reference, however brief, to town planning activity as it was carried out in
this country during the decade preceding the war. Without this, the foreign
observer, examining aspects of present activity, might either form too
optimistic an opinion by considering isolated achievements, or a pessimistic
one by judging only from the official results of plans. In either case he
would lose sight of the significance of the slow and difficult process which
was clarifying and transforming town planning in Italy; and for the foreign
observer, who is in a position to make comparisons with other countries, this
is certainly its most interesting and striking aspect. With Olivetti passing
away, however, Italian planning lost any form of appeal to the eyes of non­
Italian planning scholars. The figure of Olivetti was important in the
international context, and perhaps even more so than in Italy. In announcing
his death, the editorial in the Town Planning Review, written by Paolo
Radogna, a student of the Department of Civic Design, underlines the sense
of Olivetti’s message and his role within Italian planning:

Figure 1 – Adriano Olivetti (Source: Urbanistica, 30, 1990).

"For Olivetti, (planning) was no mere technical exercise; he saw it as



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an essential part of a unified whole which embraced industrial, social,
political and cultural problems" (Radogna, 1960).

After Olivetti, Italian planning is no longer a landmark of interest to the
international planning scene. The phenomenon of urbanisation, with the
massive urban migration of millions of Italians from rural to urban areas,
was dealt with without appropriate planning instruments (Scattoni, 2004),
and finds no attention within international planning literature. However the
phenomenon was investigated by scholars from other disciplines, especially
from the political viewpoint. The most important study on the preparation of
an urban plan in Italy was carried out by John Fried (1973), who sees in the
arduous preparation process of Rome Plan of 1965, a significant case to
explain the nature of Italian politics at the local level.
Even the establishment of regional governments, which were surely to have
considerable influence on the enforcement of the 1942 Planning Act, had
different results in the southern regions compared with those achieved in the
north and centre. But this was not analysed within the international literature
except for rare exceptions (e.g. Scattoni and Wlliams, 1978; Scattoni, 1979).
The renewed interest in the Italian planning since the mid '80s is certainly
due to the emergence of the European dimension and the needs for
comparative planning research. European student exchange programmes and
faculty and research funding contributed to this new phase. In fact,
Williams’ contribution (1984) was followed by other studies of importance.
These studies, however, have not been able to provide a meaningful and
coherent view of Italian planning and they throw little light on the way it can
help contribute to the European and international levels. In this third phase
we can distinguish two different disciplinary approaches. After Fried’s
contribution (1973), political scientists continue to regard the study of the
planning discipline, especially in the southern regions, as a way to explain
the degeneration of politics at the local level. This is the case with articles by
Judith Chubb (1981) and Percy Allum (2003). The latter is a study of
contemporary Italian politics. Different, instead, the contributions coming
from planning scholars (e.g. Astengo, 1952). Publications in English concern



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partial elements in various disciplinary fields which do not allow for an
overall understanding and judgment of Italian planning. On this element, the
cited article by Astengo remains valid.
2. THE ORIGINS
This part of the paper aims to give an account of planning legislation in
order to provide the reader with the very basic knowledge to the evolution of
the Italian Planning System. The Italian Nation was unified in 1861 from a
number of separate states. Four years later, acts were passed introducing
planning and building regulations. These new tools were mainly seen in
relation to the acquisition of land through compulsory purchase for public
infrastructures. Railways, roads, ports and channels were the main
objectives but, at the local level, land for urban development was necessary.
The planning tools introduced were: Piano di Ampliamento, Piano
Regolatore Edilizio and Regolamento Edilizio. The Piano di Ampliamento
was a plan to organise centres with over 2,000 inhabitants. The Piano
Regoltore Edilizio allowed the reorganisation of existing built­up centres.
The Regolamento Edilizio was related to aesthetic, sanitation, safety and
habitability aspects of buildings and was obligatory for all Municipalities.
The 1865 legislation produced some impact on the preparation of plans for
the major cities. By 1932 very few plans were approved. Ten years later the
number of Communes with an approved plan was less than one hundred,
with some Communes having prepared more than one plan. The Act no.
2359 of 1865 represented a stimulus for many Communes to build up some
form of Town Planning. In particular the Regolamento Edilizio could be
accompanied by a more or less detailed map showing the areas (built or to
be developed) to which the regulations applied. These maps represented a
crude but frequent form of Town planning and in the subsequent legislation
they were formally introduced as "Programma di Fabbricazione".
During the Fascist period, Town and Country Planning consolidated in
different directions. Firstly there were a series of different special Acts
relating to subjects associated with planning (eg. forestry conservation,



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landscape protection, etc.). Secondly the planning profession was in some
way recognised and the professional Institute was founded. Thirdly,
planning education had some recognition within the University system.
Finally a fundamental planning reform was introduced. In addition to this, a
programme of "new towns" was introduced by the regime. The innovations
introduced by the Fascist Government were considered sound and advanced
experiences by European planners. There was an analogy between the so
called "anti­urban ideology" of the Fascist regime and the idealistic anti­
urban movements like that of the garden cities in Great Britain". Anyway
Italian planners looked at the foreign experiences and mainly to the British
one, as a possible source of inspiration for reform. In 1929 the Conference
of International Federation of Housing and Town Planning took place in
Rome. The subjects of the Conference were: Re­planning Old and Historic
Towns to Meet Modern Conditions and Methods of Planning for the
Expansion of Towns with Special Reference to Old and Historic Towns. In
Italy, these two subjects were then strictly related to the two types of plans,
Piano Regolatore Edilizio and Piano di Ampliamento.
The Fascist regime encouraged the development of Town Planning in all its
aspects. The strategy of the Government was that of containing urban
growth, mainly for ideological reasons. Fascist propaganda tended to praise
the rural life as the bearer of the National spirit. One year after the above­
mentioned congress of the International Federation of Housing and Town
Planning, and using the remaining funds for its organization, the Istituto
Nazionale di Urbanistica (INU) was founded. The Institute aimed at the
spread of planning as a profession. On the other hand, planning education
was delivered within university schools of Architecture and Civil
Engineering and mainly on the basis of activities left to private consultants.
2.1. THE NEW PLANNING LEGISLATION
The action of the INU and those factions of the Fascist Party more sensitive
towards planning brought in the Town Planning Act no. 1150 of 1942. The
fact that the regime was at that time rapidly reaching its end, was the most
likely cause of this innovative legislation; being close to collapse, the regime



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could overcome the opposition from the interests of land speculators, which
in the past had influenced these matters.
The Town Planning Act addressed some of the problems encountered with
the previous legislation of 1865:

1. There was to be the possibility of differentiating between the Piano
Regolatore, as a general scheme, and detailed plans, which were to
be prepared subsequently. Such a principle had been already
introduced in the special Act for the Town Plan of Rome of 1931.
The Town Plan must include the whole Municipality and not
separate parts of it.
Planning should take into consideration the regional and inter­
municipal dimensions; the previous legislation did not take these
into proper consideration.
The need for conservation and protection of historical values, as
well as a whole set of relations between architecture and urban
spaces, which in those years had started to be recognised as an
important element of planning.
The possibility of acquiring large areas of land, both in order to
provide the Municipality with the necessary areas for public
services and also to limit speculation in situations of excessive
demand. Again this principle had been already expressed by Calza
Bini in the Parliamentary speech for the Act for the 1931 Rome
Plan.

4.

5.

2.
3.

2.2. THE PLANNING SYSTEM AFTER THE TOWN PLANNING ACT OF 1942
The Act introduced a hierarchical system of plans, organised into three
levels. The first planning level was represented by the "Piano Territoriale di
Coordinamento" (PTC). Its aim was to provide a framework for large areas
for new large scale industry or for large residential developments.
Furthermore the PTC should provide the proper framework for large new
infrastructures like roads, rail and electric lines. The PTC did not go beyond
physical planning and, in the mind of the legislators, it was only a tool to
orientate local decisions towards the strategic plans of the Central
Government. In this general framework, the policy of New Towns, started a



The PRG should conform to the PTC when this exists. It does not have a
time limit and any changes to it follow the same procedure as for its
approval. The preparation of the PRG was optional, except for the
Communes included in special lists published by the Ministry of Public
Works.
The third level of planning introduced by the Act no. 1150/42 related to
detailed planning: "Piani Particolareggiati". They were to be prepared by the
Municipality and to have a validity limited to ten years. During this period
the municipality had to expropriate the land and implement the plan; failure
to implement could allow the previous owner to claim back land which had
been expropriated. Exceptionally the Municipality could give private land
owners the possibility of implementing the plan themselves with a
"lottizzazione" (parcellation) in which all the details of the works for
infrastructures, housing and public services must be agreed. As will be seen
later, this possibility became the Trojan Horse for a practice completely
different from the intentions of the Act no. 1150/42. There is no doubt that
the new legislation was a very advanced result of a long period of pressure
for Town Planning Reform. In theory, the totality of land could be planned

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few years before, could have been properly organised. Afterwards the PTC
was applied in a much wider sense, including social and economic aspects.
The spatial coverage of the plan was not explicitly mentioned in the Act, but
it was generally assumed to be regional.
The second level of the planning system was the Municipal plan, called the
"Piano Regolatore Generale" (PRG). The characteristics of this plan are the
following:

1. It covers the whole Municipality;
It establishes the main road network and land zoning, including
areas for residences, industry, services and so on;
It establishes the main protections for landscape, environmental or
historic values (integrating with those established by the Central
Government);
It should also include detailed regulations for implementation of the
plan, called "Norme di Attuazione".

4.

2.
3.



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by the Commune, under the strict control of the Central Government. The
fact that only some Communes were obliged to prepare a PRG was in some
way balanced with an important improvement of the Regolamento Edilizio.
As an alternative to the Piano Regolatore, smaller and less important
Communes had to prepare a simpler planning tool called "Programma di
Fabbricazione" (PdF). The PdF, as set out in the Act no. 1150, was only a
map attached to the Regolamento Edilizio showing the direction of
expansion of the urban centres.
The approval of PRGs and Detailed plans was a complex procedure. As far
as a PRG was concerned there were several steps to be followed. After the
preparation of the Plan by a qualified planner (Architect or Engineer) it was
"adopted" by the Municipal Council. Subsequently the plan was published
and then organisations and individuals can make their "osservazioni"
(representations) and propose changes. The representations should be based
on the "public interest" and avoid any personal or particular defence of
private property. The Council must respond to all the representations, either
accepting or rejecting the proposed modifications. The Council decisions are
called "controdeduzioni" (counter­deductions). The plan, together with the
representations, is then submitted to the Ministry of Public Works. If
evaluated positively, a Presidential Decree (with the same value as an Act of
Parliament) was issued and the Plan was definitively approved. In the case
that the enquiries at local or central level are negative, the Plan could be
rejected entirely or modifications could be proposed and be subject to a new
decision of the Municipal Council.
2.3. PROSPECTS FOR PLANNING IN POST­WAR ITALY...
After World War II the Italian legislative situation was undoubtedly positive
towards planning. There had been major legislation reforms giving to the
Communes substantial powers for preparing comprehensive physical plans
and there was parallel legislation about subjects related to planning,
consolidated in the 1920s and 1930s.
At central level, the Ministry of Public Works had started to organise a



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proper structure for planning controls and peripheral offices of the Ministry
itself were able to provide reasonable support to the implementation of the
Town Planning Act of 1942. Also, Planning education had started, with
postgraduate courses not too dissimilar to planning courses in the
economically most advanced countries in Europe. The recognition of INU
could be the first step for establishing a planning profession in the same way
as the British Town Planning Institute. Planning experience in Italy was not
negligible. From 1865, with the Town Plan for Florence (Figure 2), up to the
most recent "Piano Regolatore" for Milan and for Rome in 1928 and 1932,
there existed a solid base for a more generalised approach. Also the new
towns, created by the Fascist Regime (Figure 3), were important pioneering
experiences at that time, even though their impact was vitiated by their
reactionary ideological content.

Figure 2 – Project for Piazza della Libertá, Florence (Source: Urbanistica, 12, 1953).
It could be argued that most of the Planning legislation available
immediately after World War II had been strongly influenced by the anti­
urban ideology of Fascism. On the contrary, the new political ideologies, in
the new democratic state, advocated a Nation based on industry and
therefore on a mainly urban society. The Town Planning Act of 1942 and the
planning machinery already established could have been used to control the
processes of urbanisation that the new situation necessarily required. The
efforts of the promoters of the Planning Act of 1942 to learn from other
countries must be recognised; their model now was probably British, while
the French experience had inspired the earlier post­Unification planning
laws.



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Figure 3 – Sabaudia: aerial view of the City Council Park (Source: Marconi, 1936).

2.4 ...AND THE POST WAR PLANNING POLICY
In practice, the 1942 Planning Act was abandoned for several years. In 1945
the provisional all­party Government decided to issue a series of Acts which
allowed the Communes to proceed to reconstruction without taking into
consideration the 1942 Planning Act. The Decree no. 154 introduced the
"reconstruction town plan". The declared intention was that of introducing
the necessary modifications to the old urban pattern in order to improve
urban conditions. As technical documents, the "reconstruction plans" were
very poor. The approval procedures were quick and limited and, therefore,
very often the results were unsatisfactory. The Italian solution chosen for the
reconstruction problem was the opposite of the British solution; in Italy the
reformed planning system was abandoned whilst in Britain a new radical
reform was introduced. In fact, the Town Planning Act no. 1150/1942 was
implemented again only in 1954 with the publication of the first list of the
Communes obliged to prepare the PRG. This delay coincided with a period
of large scale growth of the building sector. Benevolo (1973) attributed the
decision to abandon the Reform to an overestimate of the war damages.
According to this interpretation, the post­war all­party coalition
Government, and above all the leaders of the Communist Party (PCI) and
the Christian Democratic Party (DC), considered the Planning Act to be an
obstacle to the huge works needed for reconstruction. No precise data about
the extent of damage have been produced. It is nowadays generally accepted



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that they were important but not as catastrophic as originally estimated. A
reasonable estimate is that around 17% of the residential stock was
damaged, of which 6% was completely lost (Figure 4). A comparable
percentage of losses affected industry. Even though the data support
Benevolo's interpretation, the political misjudgement is probably a simplistic
idea.

Figure 4 – Florence, Ponte vecchio before and after war damage in
World War II (Source: Urbanistica, 12, 1953).

Other authors (Scattoni, 2004) have put forward the hypothesis that the
abandonment of the Planning Act of 1942 was mainly due to a more general
strategy for the Italian economy. The building sector was seen as the main
economic regulator for the whole economic system. Firstly the building
sector did not require highly specialised manpower and was ideal to
reconvert those moving from the rural sector. On the other hand the Central
Government could have a certain degree of control through public housing,
which at the time was carried out by Governmental Agencies. Therefore
housing became a privileged sector for the intervention of the State in the
Keynesian view of the economy, because it was found that building activity



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could induce development in many sectors of industry (Figure 5). All this
was supported by huge housing deficit. On the other hand the demand was
inflated by industrial development itself, attracting more and more
manpower from the country into industrialised metropolitan areas. Bardazzi
(1984) has shown the close correlation between post­war planning
legislation and the trends of the building industry. The conclusion is that the
real aim of planning legislation was to support the building industry more
than setting up an efficient planning system.

Figure 5 – Low­tech building sector: Engine of economic growth (Source:
Camerini et al, 2000).

2.5. THE PLANNING PROFESSION AND ATTEMPTS AT LAND REFORM
Only the planning profession tried to oppose the strategy of the national
government which had the support of all political parties. The INU



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reinforced its organisation and called for a new planning system. In the
1960s the INU used its prestige and influence in order to obtain a planning
reform and new legislation for public ownership of urban land. During the
seventies there is, on the one hand, the big innovation of the devolution of
planning powers to the Regions and, on the other hand, the attempt to
improve the existing planning laws. The idea of a new general reform was
abandoned, but at the same time it was thought possible to introduce
modifications to the Planning Act of 1942, in order to make possible the
public control of the development processes. In 1962 the new Minister of
Public Works, Fiorentino Sullo, another left­ wing Christian Democrat, with
the direct collaboration of INU's most prominent members, prepared a new,
more comprehensive Bill for a general planning and urban land reform
(Sullo, 1964). This was to require prior public ownership of land before any
development could take place. The expropriation costs were based on the
agricultural value of the land if it related to expansion areas and with some
correction for those ones to be included in existing built­up zones.
This radical Bill faced strong opposition from a great number of land owners
and landlords. The right wing parties opposed the proposal on the grounds
that it would have introduced a sort of collective socialist society. This
became one of the main issues of the 1963 General Election. The DC lost
one million votes of frightened small land owners. Sullo was not made
Minister of Public Works in the new Cabinet, and his political fortune started
to decline. Also the alliance between the INU and the progressive sectors of
the centre­left coalition parties came to an end. The only inheritance from
the first centre­left battle for land reform was the Public Housing Act of
1962, which introduced specific regulations for developing public housing
and low cost housing schemes. However, this Act remained largely
unapplied, lacking the support of a more general Land Reform which is still
to come.
2.6 THE PRACTICE OF PLANNING IN THE 1950S AND 1960S
The practice of planning during the 1950s and 1960s was in marked contrast
with the very advanced theoretical and political debate. The lists of



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Communes compelled to prepare a Piano Regolatore Generale were
published between 1954 and 1960. This list included all the major towns and
most of the small ones with special environmental and historical values. But
by 1967 very few had adopted a plan and even fewer had an approved one.
The delays in plan preparation were generally attributed by planners to the
weaknesses of the Planning Act of 1942 and to the obstacles posed by the
consolidated interests of land speculation. No reference was made to the
political system at local level. There is no systematic literature on the
planning practice of this period in relation to urban development and only a
crude idea of the system can be given through the partial literature available.
One relevant exception is a Ministry enquiry report on the practice by
Municipalities of replacing proper planning with parcellations, prepared by
land owners for new residential settlements and tourist resorts. In theory
such a practice was not allowed by the Planning Act of 1942. Parcellation
could be done only in the presence of a Detailed Plan. In practice this never
happened. The parcellations were approved by the mayors of communes on
the basis of "exceptional conditions" which in fact became the norm. In
1968 the Ministry of Public Works published the results of an enquiry
carried out on all the Italian Communes. The results showed how frequent
the use of the parcellation was. In total, the parcellations potentially
contained 18 million new rooms, of which one and a half million were for
tourist resorts. Very few Muncipalities had an approved plan and therefore
there was no legal or theoretical justification to proceed with such a practice.
As far as the quantitative aspect was concerned the enquiry of the Ministry
concluded:

"(...) in general the parcellations are not at all integrated into a planning
context. On the contrary in most cases (parcellations) replaced the
planning tools to be prepared by the Communes. They could avoid the
control of the Local Representative Councils and that of the Control
Authorities. In fact they jeopardised the possibility for an integrated urban
development on a large part of the National territory. Only 21.84% of the
volume of the studied parcellations was disciplined by a planning tool and
conforming to it".



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2.7 THE "BRIDGE" PLANNING ACT OF 1967
Once it was clear that political obstacles would not have allowed a drastic
planning reform, the Ministry of Public Works decided to issue temporary
measures in order to make a stop to the most evident planning illegalities of
the Communes. Therefore in 1967, the Planning Act No. 765, was enacted.
This Act is also known as the "Bridge Planning Act" as it was the intention
of the Ministry that the Act should work as a “bridge” between the Planning
Act of 1942 and the expected new reform, which in fact has never taken
place.
However the Bridge Act introduced fundamental innovations. Firstly, precise
deadlines were set up for the preparation of the PRG or the Programma di
Fabbricazione by the Communes. In a case where the Commune could not
meet the deadline, the Central Government could prepare the plan instead. In
the approval phase, the Ministry could introduce changes without asking the
Commune. The Mayor could not approve parcellation plans in the absence
of an approved plan and precise ratios and standards were fixed in order to
regulate heights and volumes of buildings and to provide land for open
space and public facilities. Furthermore the abuses – that is the illegal
developments ­ were to be punished more severely. Undoubtedly this Act
was a big step forward. It implicitly assumed that a Commune might not be
interested in having a town plan whilst the Act of 1942 idealistically
assumed that the Communes would have conformed "naturally'' to the law.
There is no definitive study of the impact of the Bridge Act. Certainly the
Central Government did not proceed to substitute Communes in plan
preparation at a significant scale. On the other hand the Communes could
find ways to delay plan preparation and in any case, only three years later,
the control powers were transferred from the Ministry to the new Regional
authorities. The Bridge Act introduced the innovation of minimum standards
for open space, schools, parking and public facilities. These standards are a
guideline for new plans and for the updating of the old ones. Furthermore
they are a guideline for the newly introduced Detailed Plans, to be prepared
by private landowners, called "Piani di Lottizzazione Convenzionata".



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Because the buildable volumes were already indicated by the PRG, the two
parties had to agree on the investment share for the cost of the public
facilities to be built. The standards were calculated per resident.
2.8 THE NEW PLANNING LEGISLATION AND REGIONAL DEVOLUTION IN THE
1970S
The 1970s were characterised by numerous attempts to reform the planning
system through separate and innovative laws. Two of the most important
were passed in 1971 and 1977 when the value of urban land for public
expropriation was to be based on the agricultural value. However, the laws
did not remain in force for very long since they were declared unlawful by a
ruling of the national Constitutional Court in 1980. Also worthy of mention
is the Act n. 457/1978 which strongly encouraged and favoured conservation
and regeneration of the existing housing stock and, at the same, limiting
urban expansion on greenfield sites.
As far as planning is concerned, the Regions created a structure similar to
that of the Ministry with technical committees established to replace the
Consiglio Superiore dei Lavori Pubblici. Such Committees were to provide
technical opinions about planning and regional projects. They were
generally made up of some internal officers, along with external consultants.
The original planning powers were then enriched by other powers devolved
to the regions by the national Parliament. During the first years of life of the
Regions, an all­party movement started pressures for greater autonomy for
the Regions. Such a lobby was successful in passing an Act in 1975 (No. 32)
and a Presidential Decree in 1977 (No. 616) according to which a great
number of powers were devolved mainly to the Regions, but also to
Provinces and Communes. These included planning­related powers like
landscape control and environmental conservation control, which were
passed to the Regions. Peripheral governmental offices like the
Soprintendenza lost most of their influence.
The proliferation of Regional Acts, for each Region, and their uncoordinated
actions does not allow an overall evaluation. This means that a clear



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difference, compared to the previous situation, is the loss of a
comprehensive view of Italian planning. The analysis carried out by the
Ministry of Public Works after Regional devolution never reached the
completeness of the pre­devolution period. Nevertheless some changes from
the previous period were visible. Firstly the number of plans approved
increased dramatically. Such an achievement can be attributed to several
causes. There is no doubt that the first years of life of the Regions were
characterised by enthusiasm. The politicians wanted to show that the new
institution functioned more efficiently than the slow administrative
machinery of the Central Government and plan approval was one of the
most obvious sectors for comparison. Another important factor was the
simplification and sometimes elimination of administrative controls exerted
on the Communes by the Prefectures on behalf of Central Government. Such
formal controls could delay any of the administrative steps for months. On
the other hand there were other possible elements which could have speeded
up the planning processes, which were never taken into consideration. The
"Bridge" Planning Act of 1967 probably started having its effects in the
early 1970s. The limitations to development imposed by the Act must have
convinced reluctant Communes to prepare and adopt a PRG. A final
unstudied factor could have been a certain relaxation of the quality
requirements for the plans, i.e. the Ministry may have required more than the
Regions.
A second important difference between pre­ and post­regional reform was a
different attitude towards devolution. Whilst the Ministry was really
unwilling to decentralise its powers, the Regions tended to transfer most of
their control functions to the Communes. Most of the Regions devolved
their powers of landscape control, obtained in the 1977 Act, either directly to
the Communes or to some inter­communal associations established under
Regional legislation. More recently most of the controls on detailed plans
have also been given to the Communes. Therefore, the functions of plan
making and planning control coincided. In most cases the only form of
control remained that of PRG approval.
Such a policy was justified on the grounds that devolution was, per se, a



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positive process in opposition to centralised bureaucracy of any form. There
is no extensive research on how the quality of planning and of development
control was affected by such a process. The decentralisation from Regions to
Communes diminished greatly the possibility of a general overview of the
planning situation of the whole Region, just as a few years before when
Regional reform removed such a possibility at the national level.
On the other hand, in the '80s, there were attempts of a substantial
deregulation in planning. The most important step towards deregulation was
the so called "building condono" through a specific act (47/1985). This Act
concerned past abuses. Those owners possessing a building which did not
correspond to the planning tools at the time they were built (PRG, PdF or
Regolamento Edilizio) could regularise it by paying a fine in relation to the
size of the abuse and the time it was committed (Figure 6). This would
cancel also any penal consequence for the owner. Officially, the two main
reasons for the Act were to allow some order into the matter of planning
abuses and to give the possibility of restarting a more effective development
control. On the other side there was the possibility of revenue to finance part
of the Central Government’s deficit. The forgiveness of planning sins can be
seen in the long tradition of the "seller of indulgences" for which Rome
became famous in the past; the obvious and strong opposition by INU and
conservationist groups could not stop the Act.

Figure 6 – Example of illegal development (Source: Clementi and Perego, 1983).



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2.9 THE INNOVATIVE REGIONAL ACTION IN THE LATE 1990S AND EARLY
2000S
In 2001 an important constitutional reform was passed. The reform produced
a profound institutional change relating to legislative competence over
certain matters, including planning. The subdivision of legislative
competences is based upon a simple principle which identifies matters of
absolute national or regional competence and matters which are defined as
shared, where both the state and regions have powers to legislate. In the
latter case, the reformed articles prescribe that the State should set out the
basic and guiding principles for the matter while the regions are responsible
for the specific regulations relating to their specific areas and contexts.
Planning came into this category, thus making the need for a new national
planning Act even more urgent. Within such a general framework, the
regions have sought to overcome the new challenges and meet the needs of
their populations by legislating and making new regional planning laws,
generally defined in the planning debate as “second generation” laws.
The first region to reform its planning system was Tuscany in 1995. The
regional Act n.5 introduced a new planning machinery, based on the system
favoured at that time by the Istituto Nazionale di Urbanistica. The new
system introduced different planning documents where the master plan is to
be formed by two different documents, the Piano Strutturale (structure plan),
with the aims of setting out the general strategy and vision for the city, and
the Regolamento Urbanistico (development plan) which is to determine and
identify development areas, to be developed within a five­year time period
(Oliva, 2006). An important objective to be achieved through the new
planning system, that emerged both from the national debate and implicitly
from the new regional system, was the speeding­up of the planning process.
At present half of the Italian regions have followed the experience of the
Tuscany and have introduced new acts and planning systems. Many others
are working on the reform process and have it currently underway (Falco,
2010).



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SUMMARISING REMARKS
The concise history of Italian planning outlined in this paper has showed the
level of planning legislation in relation to planning practice. The origins of
modern Italian town planning are almost contemporary with those of other
industrialised European countries. Planning was considered an essential tool
for controlling urban development. The progress before World War II was
internationally recognised. Planning education was also in line with the
developments of other countries. Despite the economic backwardness of
Italy, entering into the industrial revolution almost one century late, the
disciplinary and legislative system for the post­war period were satisfactory.
Nevertheless, the 1950s saw the practical abandonment of planning practice,
even though the theory was still developing, mainly through the contribution
of the Community movement led by Adriano Olivetti. The planning crisis
has been explained firstly by an overemphasis on the need for
reconstruction, and later by the strategic role of the building industry as the
main economic regulator. Both these aspects required some relaxation of
planning constraints.
Obstacles to planning remained, even when the economic development of
the country made these conditions obsolete. At this point all the existing
explanations of the situation become partial and largely unsatisfactory and a
clear gap exists in Italian planning research. There are indications that an
'anti­planning' attitude grew up within local political systems. On the other
hand, planning legislation continued to develop in the 1970s, reaching high
levels of sophistication but the impact on practice was not as great as
expected. Finally the practical behaviour of the Regions since the late 1970s
and the subsequent national legislation have started a process of
deregulation which consolidated the anti­planning attitude already evident in
development practice.
The 1980s and 1990s nowadays represent an important stage in the history
of planning. During the eighties, the first and most important form of



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deregulation was allowed by the State. With a specific national Act (n.
47/1985) all the private developments developed illegally as not complying
with the law and with planning regulations were allowed to be regularised
through a simple procedure called condono edilizio (where subject to the
payment of a sum of money (a fine) the development was declared lawful
and the administrative and penal consequences for the owner were
cancelled).
As concerns the 1990s, in this period a major and most interesting feature
has been the growing participation of private sector investors and
stakeholders in the planning process. Participation, in the decision­making
process as well as in the implementation phase, has followed from the lack
of financial resources available to public administrations and therefore the
need to involve private stakeholders to bring forward development proposals
has been increasingly high. As a consequence of this situation, several local
tools and plans and forms of public­private partnerships have been
introduced within the national legislation. Over the years the role of these
tools has grown increasingly important in the delivery of planning
objectives.
AGENDA FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
Within the above described framework, Italian planning shows the potential
for further studies and different interpretations for Italian as well as non­
Italian academics and professionals. The role of the “Italian Journal of
Planning Practice” is that of gathering research on Italian planning from
both scholars and professionals in order to further contribute to the
international planning debate through the Italian experience; trying in this
way to place more emphasis on Italian planning which is perhaps currently
internationally underrepresented.
It could be argued that there are several areas worthy of study which could
be of great interest. Firstly, there is the well­known area of heritage
protection and conservation and the planning for the historic heritage which,



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given the historical nature of Italian cities, provides a considerable bulk of
work where Italy is at the forefront. International comparisons with Italian
practice should prove to be stimulating, especially when we are entering an
era of reduced resources.
Secondly, there is the whole area of environmental and landscape planning.
Landscape protection and planning, being one of the main problematic areas
which does not receive proper treatment in Italy, offers exciting new
prospects for study and is open to international contributions. Similarly,
environmental planning and management represents another important field
of great interest and of vital importance for the future of our cities to which
comparative research can positively contribute.
Last but not least, there remains a research area which focuses on the impact
on the planning system of outdated social structures and relationships, in
which criminality plays an important role. On this subject important
academics have based their studies (such as Judith Chubb, Robert Fried and
Robert Putnam). The literature on dark and gray networks offers a new
scenario for the interpretation of the relationship between local politics and
planning.
Furthermore, dissemination and exchange of research results in these subject
areas should be accompanied by the analysis and understanding of changing
institutional contexts, perhaps moving towards a federal model but also
being increasing aware of localism, community empowerment and
participation and the need for greater transparency in planning.
Certainly this is not a simple task that we are undertaking but we believe
that this humble, passionate and enthusiastic project could make an
important contribution to the spread of research on Italian planning, with
mutual benefits for our international colleagues.



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FIGURE SOURCES
Figure 1 ­ Urbanistica, 30, 1990.
Figure 2 ­ Urbanistica, 12, 1953
Figure 3 ­ Marconi, P. (1936) (ed) Atti Ufficiali del XIII Congresso Internazionale

degli Architetti e degli Ingegneri, Roma: Sindacato Nazionale Fascista
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Figure 4 ­ Urbanistica, 12, 1953

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IJPP ­ Italian Journal of Planning Practice 32Vol. I, issue 1 ­ 2011

Figure 5 – Camerini et al, (2000) Storia Sociale Italiana: la vicenda della FILCA­
CISL. Ortona: Foto dell’archivio Storico Nazionale CISL.

Figure 6 – Clementi, A. and Perego, F. (1983) La metropoli spontanea. Il caso di
Roma 1925­1981. Bari: Dedalo.

Scattoni, Falco ­ Why Italian planning is worth studying