The first number of Urbanistica was published in 1932, as a bulletin of the Piemonte section of the Istituto Nazionale di Urbanistica (INU), the Association of Italian planners founded in 1930 in order to "promote, regulate and diffuse the studies on planning in Italy". In 1934 the local bulletin became the "Journal of the INU". Substantial autonomy, however, Urbanistica has played a fundamental and unanimously recognized role in Italian planning.

During the national Congress, held in Rome in 1948, the INU structure was reorganized, the cultural and disciplinary politics were renewed, and the revival of the journal was instigated. The editor was Adriano Olivetti, the new president of the INU and financier of the journal, with Giovanni Astengo was the head of the editorial staff. In 1953, Astengo became the new editor. His long editorship (over twenty years, with fifty-four issues) was the most successful in the journal's history; publishing many important articles on plans and policies, with attention to the international panorama: Florence, Milan, Padua and Siena, Rome, Venice, Turin, Naples, including Amsterdam and the rest of Holland, Stocholm, Letchworth and the new towns in England, and Poland. Articles submitted by important foreign authors (L.Mumford, R.Auzelle, E.A. Gutkind, G.Bardet, R.J. Neutra, B. Malisz) appeared parallel to those of important Italian authors (L. Piccinato; G. Samonà, B. Zevi, G. De Carlo, M. Tafuri). Topics such as traffic, historic centres, and planning for metropolitan and regional areas were some of the most significant.

In 1983, Bernardo Secchi became the new editor. Twenty-four issues were subsequently published. WhileUrbanistica informazioni became the INU's official voice, Urbanistica established an autonomous cultural position, suggesting guidelines to overcome a season of radical disciplinary crisis.

The national Congress, held in Palermo in 1993, elected a new managerial committee and decided a new editorial program; the editor had been Patrizia Gabellini. The unabridged numbering (the first issue of the new series is no. 102) underlined the fact that new editors, a new program, the new six-monthly frequency, and the new graphic style and format were not a breach with the journal's past. The aim was to present rigorous arguments and challenges, together with discussions and inquiries as a means of comprehending the current situation, with reappraisals to avoid uncritical and banal accounts or unwitting repetitions of the past. The structure reflects these premises: the "Osservatorio" covers issues related to the profound change underway in social, economic, and political behaviours, and settlement forms; the internal section, "Piani Progetti Politiche", consists of contributions from the variegated professional world; the third section, "Archivio", offers a compendium of reflections on the roots of planning theory and practice.

A new series will begin with the number 112: editor Dino Borri, co-editor Walter Fabietti.
One of the most evident features of Urbanistica has remained the publishing of Italians and Europeans masterplans, in an attempt to illustrate good "examples" that could be imitated (until the 1960s); for critical analysis (in the 1970s); to show the differences and the specifications of singular situations, to illustrate how to deal with the new and to speculate the future (in the second part of the 1980s). From the 80's, the schemes of the plans began to be included in a wider editorial program and occupied only a part of the journal. These changes in the schemes' presentation attracted different readers: professional planners, technicians and administrators of the municipalities, a public more interested in complex theoretical questions and in a continuous exchange with other cultural fields. In fact, the contributions from other disciplines are another important aspect.