ABSTRACT
The European Single Market has been in place since 1993, but the Italian land and property market is far from being open to developers and investors from abroad. The decision process in the urban planning field needs to be reported entirely in the local government assemblies, near the problems of firms and citizens, and kept far away from the private meeting rooms of political parties and enterprises. Lawyers are typically more interested in stating principles than in checking whether or not the asserted rules can be implemented once they have been printed. The absence of efficient planning practices jeopardizes the stability and growth prospects of property values, and not only the well being of communities. Urban planning arose as a modern discipline to regulate the construction of the city in the first industrial revolution, in the nineteenth century. The lack of formal organization typical of Italian property market can have effect of acting as valid barrier to external penetration.
