Keywords: City of Cities / [City of] Populations

The Strategic Project of the Province of Milan has explicitly adopted two "new urban dimensions" as a general point of reference, the city of cities and the multiple urban populations. City of cities has its roots both in analyses and interpretations of the Milan urban region produced in the second half of the 20th Century and also in other Italian and international urban planning contexts. The term city of cities was first used in Italy in the city of Rome's Master Plan. Later it was used in the preparation of the city of Bologna's structural plan and in the Region of Emilia Romagna's regional plan. Urban populations were introduced in Italy in urban sociological debate as early as the 1980s by Guido Martinotti, who recognised the co-existence in the city of many different urban populations. The movement of urban populations contributes to the structure of a city consisting not just of places, but also of flows.