The paper carries out a review of the literature dealing with the Italian growth poles policy, from the 1950s to the end of the 1980s. The text is divided into three parts. The 4th Siderurgical Center and the start of the Alfasud car plant are the objects of the first two parts; the third part...

In post-Unification Italy industrialization was ever sharply sub-regional. Initially industry was largely artisanal, and located in the former political capitals; factory industry was instead attracted by the waterfalls of the subalpine Northwest. From the 1880s, as modernization accelerated,...