ABSTRACT
The starting point for the discussion of the development control systems in Britain and France was the activities of Henri IV and Charles I in promoting an ideal of city form in the piazzas of Covent Garden and the Place Royale. These two initiatives exemplified the general principle that the desire to control development stems from a wish to be certain that in future the city will conform to perceptions of good order of whatever kind. Indeed, even if some systems of development control lay a heavier premium on certainty than others, all control activities tend in that direction and various mechanisms have been used to achieve the desired ends. These include direct intervention by the controlling authority, the use of dimensional norms for buildings and, more recently, the preparation of plans to which individual control decisions could be referred. Certainty has become an issue, not simply for the controlling authority, with its vision of the perfect city towards which the control activity works, but for anyone with a stake in the development process.
