Carlo Doglio (1914–1995) and the theory and practice of slingshot planning

In 1961 Carlo Doglio (1914–1995) left London, where he had spent the previous six years studying Town Planning (among other things), to join the poet, activist, and social worker Danilo Dolci in leading the development plan of one of the poorest and most marginalized Italian regions: Sicily. Doglio’s actions were guided by a constant dissatisfaction with a model of society that excluded communities from the decision-making process. In Sicily, he saw this as an opportunity to use technical knowledge and experience to achieve a different model of social organization, based on social cooperation and voluntary action. As a militant planner and anarchist, he believed that the planning process had to be structured from the bottom-up in order to offer choices that could be freely discussed and appropriately fulfilled, by the community. Based on original documents from the planner’s archive, this study provides an overview of his work in Sicily, the place where his theories and practices best express his identity as a planner. Although this article offers a detailed examination of Doglio’s work, it also introduces the notion of urban and regional planning as a form of social action and as a means to promote a new form of society, built on pro-active and cooperative communities.