Regional Law n. 12/2005 and the reform of national urban planning - Federico Oliva (p. 13) Urban planning reform is underway through new regional reform laws and small but important partial legislative measures (public social housing and equal distribution). What is lacking, however, is a national law on the «fundamental principles of regional and urban planning», which would not only legally consolidate new regional laws and guard against the legal dangers of a transition period which is too long, but would also represent the necessary reference framework for the policies, plans and programmes of all the institutions with responsibility for planning in a given geographical area. The Lombard Law No. 12/2005 forms no real part of this reform process because of two critical weaknesses: the absence of a structural plan replaced by a strategic plan, the ‘DP’ (plan document), which is too short time wise to fulfil the function; the absence of an operational plan, replaced by the ‘action plans’, which, however, do not guarantee the implementation of fundamental functions. Moreover the law does not address the main current malaise, which is the ‘metropolitanisation’ of the country.