Introduction

The task of this monograph was to illustrate and explain ‘best practice’ American design review to an international audience, providing as many illustrations, plan excerpts, and samples of guidance as possible in the belief that this would stimulate thought and encourage innovation in design guidelines and review processes in countries beyond the USA. West coast cities of the USA were selected to illustrate this ‘best practice’, four of them major metropolitan areas and two of them suburban municipalities. Collectively these were considered to display a long-standing commitment to design quality; a full range of design visions, strategies, goals, objectives and policies at different scales from city-wide to the neighbourhood; a sophisticated review process; a high degree of public consultation and public ownership of policies; and a wide range of implementation devices and investment programmes.

The evolution of the respective planning and design policies has been discussed and their strengths and weaknesses assessed. Their outcomes have been assessed to a much lesser extent, and it has rarely been possible to assess the effectiveness of policies in any depth. In the opening chapter design review was carefully located in the planning and permit-granting process in the largest cities, and comparisons were made with Canadian, British and French planning systems to illustrate where commonalities exist. It was seen that there are more similarities between American planning and continental European systems than there are between American and British systems; the latter have no zoning controls and no clear development entitlements.