Future of Standards and Rules in Shaping Place: Beyond the Urban Genetic Code

Abstract

American communities are shaped by standards and codes that virtually dictate all aspects of urban form. Simple standards for subdividing land, grading, laying streets and utilities, and configuring rights-of-way and street widths may seem harmless, but, because, they have been copied and adopted from one place to another across the land, they have an enormous impact on the way our neighborhoods look, feel, and work. Today’s regulations represent the sum of decades of rules designed to promote particular practices. Because so much has been built according to these dictates, the accumulated rules now have the force of universal acceptance. Treated as if they have some kind of biological significance, standards have become the definers and promoters of places—the genetic code of urban development. Many institutions and practices converge to give established standards their reach and power. Methodical administration of public works, the centralized supervision over land development, and the rise of the various engineering and urban planning professions have established design standards as absolutes. Local governments have often automatically adopted and legitimized such standards to shield themselves from lawsuits and from responsibility in decision making. Financial institutions and lenders have also been hesitant to support a development proposal outside the mainstream, particularly when it does not conform to established design practices. With the crafting of exact rules and standards, regulatory bodies can predictably shape development, even though the actual results may be less desirable than a variable approach. Obviously, development standards can assure a level of quality in performance, as do many plans and construction standards designed to protect our health and safety. The problem arises when standards intended for health and safety overstep their bounds and lose grounding in the objective measures of their benefit or break the connection with the original rationale for their existence. This disconnect has overtaken many standards and regulations today because they have failed to be responsive to their negative impacts on the environment. The net effect is one of a dynamic planning enterprise frustrated by its inability to carry through innovation in the form of alternative development proposals that violate existing standards yet may be of great service in creating desirable communities.

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