Home ownership at the origins of contemporary Italy. Politics and legislation (1945-1950)

Abstract

Although mass access to private home ownership deeply marked the history of contemporary Italy, it remains one of the least studied topics in historiography. This article wishes to help fill this gap by analysing the origins of a process that made Italy one of the countries with the highest rate of home owners in Western Europe. Housing and construction policies aimed at encouraging and supporting small home ownership played a decisive role in this process. From a political and legislative perspective, the post-war years were fundamental: some of the main pieces that would make up the mosaic of a country of private home owners were laid down precisely in those years. In the article, I will examine the programmatic positions of parties as well as the political exchange that occurred in the Constituent Assembly and during parliamentary discussions on fundamental measures such as the Ina Casa plan and the Tupini and Aldisio laws on real estate development.