Law 167 and Italian Cities: A Historiographical Assessment

This article analyzes how Italian historiography has addressed Law 167/1962 on affordable and social housing and its consequences for postwar urban development. Despite the central role of this measure in shaping the residential landscape of Italian cities, comprehensive reconstructions capable of assessing its overall impact remain scarce. The history of 167 housing schemes has largely been absorbed into sectoral historiographies – of public policy, housing, architecture, and planning – reflecting increasing disciplinary specialization and often limiting a more integrated understanding of the phenomenon. Furthermore, because the implementation of the law was entrusted to municipalities, its outcomes varied significantly across local contexts. As a result, much of the existing scholarship has taken the form of local studies – urban monographs and neighborhood histories – reinforcing a broader tendency within Italian urban history to privilege placebased investigations over comparative perspectives. While these studies have produced valuable insights, they have also contributed to a fragmented picture. The article argues that the history of 167 neighborhoods raises a series of open questions that are crucial for situating the Italian case within international debates on mass housing and urban design, and calls for more synthetic, comparative, and interdisciplinary approaches to the subject.

Keywords: Law No. 167, Historiography, Mass housing, Middleclass housing, Post WWII Italy, Planning history.

Filippo De Pieri, La 167 e le città italiane: un bilancio storiografico in "STORIA URBANA " 182/2025, pp 13-28, DOI: 10.3280/SU2025-182002