The book edited by F. Archibugi has increased the reflection on the new contents of urban policy in the 60s, which saw the city as an entity, different from the city of traditional physical town-planning, and preludes to the concept of “integrated” planning, not only territorial but also economic and social. A series of contributions by historians, geographers, sociologists, town-planners and economists have tried to “correct the tendency that some juridicial aspects on those cultural ones, which have existed in the town-planning debate in Italy in recent years, are still prevalent.”
The “city-region” or “city-territory” was considered an idea/guideline to offer as objective in the economic planning itself. Of such an idea/guideline, historical and cultural premises have been examined; thus the first hypotheses of one of its applications to today's situation (1966) of the Italian territorial organisation have been discussed.
The book represented the cultural substance of the future “Progetto 80” (1969), at least for the territorial part of its proposals.
“This volume – as it still says on the second cover – contains the first manifestations of a new methodology of the integration of town-planning into economic planning”.
The long introductory essay by Franco Archibugi is significantly entitled: Towards the definition of town-planning objectives in economic planning . It follows a long essay by Francesco Sirugo: City and region in the historic development of the industrial society. Then there are also included essays by:
Vittoria Calzolai, Fiora Giardi Borracci, and Fabrizio Giovenale, City and region in town-planning culture
Franco Archibugi, The idea of the city: some annotations
Giorgio Ruffolo, The criteria of the policy of territorial organisation in the first 5-year plan
Franco Fiorelli, Territorial aspects of the development plan for the ”Mezzogiorno”
Fausto Fiorentini and Mario Ghio, Town-planning standards and city-region in regional economic planning
Vicenzo Cabianca and Alberto Lavaca, Region and city-region in territorial planning
Alberto Lavaca and Marinella Ottolenghi, Town-planning examination of the Italian territory and typological classification of the areas. Hints and proposals
And finally an essay by Franco Archibugi, The growth of cities in Italy : demographic aspects of the urbanisation in the decade 1951-1961