Verso la pianificazione collettiva del passato prossimo/Toward a collective planning of the recent past

The article suggests a new role that conservation could play in planning if regarded as a result of community based policies. It first underlines, according to Lynch’s work, the existence of two different kinds of past: a “remote past”, in charge of governments and depending on transnational agreements and homologizing policies, and a “recent past”, that is under the care of the common people. The second part of the paper looks at the intricate map of subjects involved or interested in policies, programs and conservation projects. It emphasizes the possibility to concentrate both theoretical and practical issues on the propulsive role of society and citiziens – in cooperation with local governments – in giving sense and significance to wasted and empty areas of the modern city. The role of this collaborative action, from which the persistency of the “recent past” is strongly dependent, is therefore considered as another good reason for a social-oriented approach, in planning as well as in conservation. The third part of this contribution deals with abilities and tools requested in a collaborative process and introduces a particular kind of planner, defined as “site advocate”, whose main skill is to empower not only the people, but also the places, showing the citiziens how conscously they select their own past without forgetting the future of the community. Finally, according to a dialogical and communicative rationality, the paper suggests practices to experiment in order to build a collective interpretation of the past.