‘California Dreamin’: Rural Planning and Agricultural Development in Italy’s Grosseto Plain, 1948-1965

After World War II, the Italian government launched an agrarian reform scheme to develop rural areas (1950–1965). The plan aimed to create small, highly mechanized farms for social, political, and economic purposes. Using the textual, statistical, and cartographical sources of the Agrarian Reform Authority's historical archive, this article examines the controversial debate over the reform outcomes, focusing on a limited area in southern Tuscany, the Grosseto Plain, as a case study. Analysis of initial projects and their changes over time demonstrates that the form of access to and ownership of environmental resources, as well as the resources used, influenced the implementation of the reform. The article also considers the problem of the real outcomes of state planning.