Historiography on the construction of collective services and facilities in Italian cities has often focused on individual housing schemes or on sectoral planning policies. This essay views services and facilities as part of a broader city-making process, reconstructing trajectories of transformation that resulted from a combination of choices made at different times by a multiplicity of actors, both public and private. The three histories presented in the paper exemplify a few recurring modes of housing and service production, highlighting – among other things – the capacity of some architects to accompany such processes by playing multiple roles within them.