Add to ORKGAlmost fifteen years have passed since the first experiments of spatial planning have been launched in Italy; almost 70 since when the national planning law has been adopted, defining goals, objectives, forms of spatial planning. The last 30 years have been characterised by a large debate about the limits of the idea and interpretation of spatial planning provided by a law, which though considered old and to be changed already a few years after approval, is still ruling the field. Nevertheless since the middle of the 1990’s some strong innovations have been introduced. Among them the regionalisation of legislative power and competences in the field and the introduction of new planning tools aiming at coping with the debated li...