Caro Piano ti scrivo

Abstract

This paper offers a critical reflection on the current state of urban planning as a discipline and on the role of the plan when facing the transformations of the contemporary city. Starting from the diagnosis of a deep crisis – in legislative practices as well as in consolidated conceptual frameworks – the text identifies several directions for renewal. In particular, it argues for overcoming the binary logic of “permitted/not permitted”, replacing it with the distinction between “possible/not possible”: a category that incorporates the unforeseeable as a constitutive part of planning and shifts the question from a legal – normative to an ethical – design register. The paper also argues for a redefinition of planning knowledge as a dynamic process and for the centrality of design as a constructive practice.