Development Policy in an Over-populated Area: Italy’s Experience

In the immediate post-war period, the nature of the Mezzogiorno problem did not closely correspond with the problems that are principally to be discussed by this conference. The Mezzogiorno was a large underdeveloped area almost on a national scale, and one which, even if in some places it presented conditions no more backward than those of other parts of the country, taken as a whole was characterised by a low level of economic development in comparison with that of most of Europe, and by special backwardness in economic and social structures. It was therefore legitimate to regard the underdevelopment of the Mezzogiorno as substantially different from the problem of a backward area such as occurs in many highly developed countries. It was rather a problem all of its own, comparable with that of the so-called underdeveloped countries.