ABSTRACT
Since the 1970's, I have been documenting the evolution of the public design review process and the design of new construction projects in locally designated historic districts. This paper summarizes the findings of my initial visits to the nine case-study communities in 1977-78 and my return eight years later. In that relatively short period of time, the reviewing bodies had shifted from beleaguered to respected (although still not envied) positions in their communities for which there were many reasons on the national and the local level. As in other communities that practice design review, what has been built in these historic districts reflects, to borrow a sentence from my paper, "a complicated interweaving of tangible and intangible influences and a melding of the design process and the design review process."
