ABSTRACT
The Symposium on Design Review is being held to address the growing tendency of local governments to institute programs of aesthetic control. I have recently completed a national survey of planning agencies in more than 370 cities and towns on the topic of their design review processes. 78% of the towns surveyed had some form of design review. My initial assumption - that aesthetic review was primarily restricted to historic districts and structures- proved to be wrong. Only twelve respondents reserved design review exclusively for historic structures or districts. Therefore, we can conclude that more than 75% of the cities and towns in this country have moved into the arena of design review of ordinary, non-historic development projects. This widespread use of design review is also new: 60% of the respondents with design review have introduced design review in the last 12 years, 10% in the last two years.
