In the postwar period, in Italy and Spain, similar economic and social conditions and the cultural context characterized by the Neorealist Cinema phenomenon, represent the background of this investigation, a comparative analysis of public housing policies developed in these countries in the late '40 and early ‘50. The points of contacts found, such as the imbalance between public and private property and the development strategy of programs, especially designed to benefit the middle class, help to clarify the genesis of some of the problems that in Italy and Spain are even more relevant respect to the rest of Europe: the chronic lack of social housing and the inadequacy of urban management policies.