Design Review in Small Communities

The central question of this study is whether and how the broader paradigmatic changes in social discourse, as exemplified by the postmodernism debate, are reflected in the practical world of local land-use regulations, specifically the design-review processes. We identify the paradigmatic themes of postmodernism as ‘place’, ‘sustainability’, and ‘participative democracy’. To address this central question we surveyed the officials in positions of implementing land-use controls in 87 (out of a sample set of 177) communities in Wisconsin having a population ranging from 2000 to 100 000, in order to identify their attitudes towards design review. In addition to questions on existing land-use regulations, our survey asked what types of objectives may be accomplished by design review and how, that is, whether they should be addressed by land-use regulations at all and, if so, the desired degree of ‘formality’ of the regulations. The data, analyzed by Ward's cluster analysis method (using SAS), show three different sets of attitudes to design review: (1) modernist technocratic, (2) postmodernist technocratic, and (3) postmodernist critical. Here we discuss these attitudes in terms of the types of objectives they address and the formality of regulations that they favor. Unlike the modernist point of view that strives to establish universal relationships as the basis for review standards, the postmodernist view suggests a situational research approach to discover relationships that may be unique and local. However, a design-review process that allows and encourages critical dialogue and interpretation, rather than self-administrating standards, is more vulnerable to public and legal challenges. This necessitates new operational and practical methodologies for education, planning, and design review that are capable of responding to the challenges of the emerging postmodernist views.