Andrea Villani

In the mid Sixties, there has been a strong debate about the governance of the urban development of Milan and its metropolitan area. Two alternative models proposed put forward contrasting views. On one side, those who supported the opportunity of a planning based on great transport infrastructures, to predetermine the outcome of the urban development. On the opposite side, those who thought that such a goal was neither correct nor politically attainable, and stressed instead the importance of process planning. The debate did neither consider the consequences of the implementation, nor the problems involved in the management of each model. This debate anticipated an analogous one both at theoretical and political level in the field of urban planners in the Western world.