Artificial Intelligence and Urban Planning

ABSTRACT This Article examines how Italy’s turn to digital government and data-driven administration is remaking landuse governance. It distinguishes back-office digitization that leaves human judgment intact from algorithmic governance that reshapes how agencies establish facts and reach outcomes. Against the NRRP and new national data platforms, it shows how planning offices are beginning to treat AI tools and “urban digital twins” as standard planning infrastructure and as public digital resources subject to open-government and data-protection constraints. It then analyzes AI-supported code enforcement, focusing on the national database on unlawful construction, and flags recurring problems: unreliable data, privacy exposure, weak human review, and uncertain accountability. The Article argues that black-box systems and expertise gaps can push residents to the margins of planning, and it calls for participation and accountability rules redesigned for AI-assisted governance.

KEYWORDS Algorithmic governance - Digital government - Land-use planning - Urban digital twins - Administrative accountability

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Digitalization and datafication of public administrations. Remarks for an inquiry into the relationship between territorial governance and artificial intelligence. – 2. From analogue urban planning to digital territorial governance. – 3. Artificial intelligence, territorial governance and building infringements. – 4. Procedural participation, AI and territorial governance. – 5. Final remarks.