Urban Planning in Emilia-Romagna During the Golden Age: Plans, Neighborhoods, and Political Cultures

The article analyses some issues of urban planning in Emilia-Romagna in the thirty years following the Second World War. The first concerns the continuity (of planners, plans, models, etc.) between Fascism and post-war reconstruction. This makes the periodization of urban history and political history different. The second concerns the cultural contamination of planning experiences linked to the neighborhood-village model adopted from the 1930s to the 1960s. This transcended the ideological contrasts between the PCI and the Catholic camp. The third analyzes Giuseppe Campos Venuti’s experience as a councillor in the Municipality of Bologna and as a leading urban planner in Emilia-Romagna between the 1960s and 1970s. In the background, the transformations caused by the economic boom on local societies, administrations and political parties.