URBANISM. – A term commonly used to designate the general phenomena of the formation of large urban agglomerations, especially when rapid and intense, as well as the particular influx caused by the attraction of the urban center on nearby and distant rural populations. These phenomena often assume such proportions and intensity as to become pathological.
Phenomena connected with this problem can be observed even in the Roman era, particularly when foreigners of all kinds flocked to the capital of the Empire, driven either by necessity, the desire to make their fortune, or the attractions of comfort, luxury, and entertainment. In the following ages, the phenomenon of urbanism did not begin to become alarming until the beginning of the modern era, as a result of the formation of large national states. It was, however, more pronounced in the rest of Europe than in Italy. Statistics, which in the service of demography and other social sciences have allowed for increasingly precise data, show that from the 19th century onward the phenomenon of urbanism has assumed immense proportions: the formation of capital and its investment in industry constitute the principal cause of urban development. At the beginning of the 19th century, only London and Paris, among the great European cities, had populations approaching one million. By 1900, other European capitals such as Berlin, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Constantinople, and Moscow had reached this level. Even more rapid has been the formation of large cities in North and South America, fueled by a massive influx of immigrants. A similar rapid development is seen in Australian cities and the great Asian cities, where, however, the influx of Europeans for the development of trade, which served as an incentive for the formation of large indigenous nuclei, appears as a concurrent force alongside the extraordinary natural increase of local populations.
In Italy, the large cities in 1500 could be considered Naples, Palermo, Milan, Venice, Rome, Genoa, and Messina, before its destruction by earthquake, though their population levels could not be compared to those of the great foreign capitals. To find Italian cities with a population of one million, one must wait until around 1930 (Rome and Milan). Municipalities with more than one hundred thousand inhabitants now constitute more than 25% of the total population. In some of these, the population has increased by an average of 400% over the past seventy years: thus, in addition to Rome and Milan, which have unique characteristics and development curves, certain cities with military and commercial ports or seats of major industries, particularly the industrial centers of Lombardy, and some large cities in the Mezzogiorno. The last war opened a painful parenthesis in the otherwise already alarming normal development of the urban phenomenon: in countries that were theaters of military operations, large cities accommodated an impressive number of refugees and profiteers without means or work, creating new and difficult problems.
The development of urban areas could not, however, be left to the discretion of private builders and individual initiatives. Thus, in all countries affected by the phenomena of urbanism, the institution of the urban plan emerged, along with a corresponding field of study, urban planning, which aims to regulate the most rational development of cities. In Italy, as early as 1865, a first regulation was introduced, requiring municipalities with over 10,000 inhabitants to draw up plans to improve living conditions from the standpoint of hygiene and traffic, and to foresee expansion plans for the creation of new neighborhoods. From 1885 onward, special measures followed for the urban plans of major cities, though without resolving the broader urban problems. Significant progress was made with the law of August 17, 1942, which placed each urban plan in the service of the general interest, on the one hand through the territorial coordination plan, under which individual municipal plans were framed, and on the other through the general urban plan, which encompassed the entire municipal territory. Municipalities were also permitted to create a domain of areas by expropriating zones of urban expansion, imposing on private individuals the obligation to carry out the arrangements envisaged in detailed plans, and executing them officially in case of non-compliance. It was also foreseen to establish special building units through specific "compartments," the mandatory cession of areas designated for roadways, the imposition of restrictions on urban areas intended for private gardens, and the prohibition of land subdivision for building purposes before the approval of detailed urban plans.
Demographic statistics analyze to what extent population growth is due to the net balance between births and deaths, and to what extent to internal and external migration, enabling a social evaluation of the urban phenomenon. From a certain perspective, it is indispensable to social progress, since only in urban agglomerations is the development of science, literature, and the arts possible, through the creation of large schools, libraries, museums, and laboratories.
However, it can also cause numerous and serious hardships. Normally, large cities, by continuously attracting less gifted individuals, contribute significantly to the increase in the number of mentally degenerate and physically handicapped people. Even those not positively affected are shown by medical and statistical analyses to suffer from a general weakening that affects subsequent generations with ever-greater drawbacks. Moreover, the continuous influx of most new inhabitants occurs in a socially and intellectually less advanced environment, so that the more refined external civilization is often dissociated from solid moral foundations. The unbridled pursuit of all kinds of entertainment, which in cities often flourishes uncontrolled, generally leads to a weakening of the sense of duty and human dignity. The religious and moral spirit suffers severe shocks; the loss of spiritual guidance, which is more effective in less populated areas, undermines the greater stability of the rural family, with negative repercussions on the education of children. Vice in cities is undoubtedly more visible, easier, and less hindered by public authorities, often even serving as a source of profit for a significant number of individuals.
The housing problem becomes perpetually insoluble. Urban organization proves always insufficient, especially where private speculators anticipate building construction by far too long compared to hygienic installations, schools, and communication networks with the center, also because public bodies are not economically equipped to cope with the continuous emergence of new needs. Crimes, especially those against property, find in these cases fertile ground for their development, and likewise the percentage of alcoholics is steadily increasing.
A first group of repressive measures concerns the imposition of limits on the influx into cities. Thus, registration in population records of new individuals is made conditional on proof of concrete employment opportunities and, in general, possession of the means of subsistence, and penalties, more or less severe, are imposed on those who facilitate clandestine immigration. Measures of this kind have been taken in Italy in 1928 and 1930, and with greater organic coherence in 1939, as well as in countries toward which emigration is usually directed.
A second group of measures has a preventive character in relation to the causes of urbanistic phenomena. Among these primary causes are the wretchedness of rural dwellings, the distance from doctors, the scarcity and total absence of public and private school assistance. The social reclamation of rural areas is necessary, while also creating centres of interest that retain the peasant on the land. Measures aimed at promoting the subdivision of large landed estates have been adopted in many countries of continental Europe, with the dual intent of encouraging the transformation of poor peasants into small landowners and facilitating a more direct and immediate connection to the cultivated land, through the concurrent expansion of agricultural credit and rural building.
For Italy, two laws of 12 May and 21 October 1950 are particularly noteworthy: the first concerning the Sila plateau, the second for the territories of other Italian regions, predominantly central-southern and Sardinia. These laws regulate the expropriation of lands susceptible to transformation, subjecting to this regime properties exceeding a certain size, through the payment of compensation, while exempting on the other hand lands under intensive cultivation with efficient and organic farms, equipped with modern facilities and run in an associative manner with multiple workers. Collateral legislative provisions have then sought to encourage the voluntary establishment of small cultivator properties, through financial and fiscal benefits.
Experience and statistics moreover show that in countries with varied altitude, such as Italy, there is a progressive depopulation from the higher zones, more difficult to exploit, subject to greater hardships, towards the lower zones, and from these towards the plain, and then towards the cities. Hence the necessity of intervening with laws and adequate appropriations in favour of mountainous zones, which nonetheless play a preponderant part in the economy of individual States. Preventive measures also include legislative provisions aimed at the more rational regulation of the colonisation of zones of national territory endowed by nature, and at the coordination of internal colonisation plans with internal migratory movements, so as to divert from the cities nuclei of rural population in excess relative to a given territory, directing them towards zones to be colonised. To achieve these aims, regulations on the regulation of the placement of labour prove opportune, which can also have the useful function of diverting industrial workers from one city to another offering greater employment opportunities.
Even the expansion of the city perimeter, with the consequent creation of human hives, lacking in aesthetic, hygienic and moral sense, and the inevitable extension of the city, could be replaced by the creation of healthy and modern villages, not far from the workplace, appropriately connected to the city by convenient means of transport, which are in continuous development.