PLANNING A NEW PERSPECTIVE FOR THE FUTURE: ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND SUSTAINABILITY IN URBAN PLANNING.The Italian case

Since the origins, planning has been conceived as a technique then as a science for the transformation of natural resources (first of all the soil) to respond to economic and social needs of a small community, first, and then for a more and more fast-growing and complex society. According to this deep-rooted approach environment has been actually considered as mean for development to be used unconditionally. In Italy, since the ’70es the economic development involved a strong process of urbanization, by the sprawl of residential areas far away from the big cities areas as well as the sprawl of factories from the big industrial plants concentration. In the last years, various regional government (that in Italy are in charge of planning and environment protection) are trying to introduce sustainable principles and a framework to conceive, draw up and carry out plans and project for a concrete sustainable land use and very effective environmental protection.