Design Standards as Urban Planning: From Technical Specification to Community “Look” in Northeast Illinois Suburbs

Robert Rotenberg

Economic Anthropology, 2015, vol. 2, issue 1, 145-164

Abstract: type="main" xml:id="sea212022-abs-0001"> Design standards, an urban and municipal branding device that originated as a practice in the United States some two decades ago, have become one of the most powerful place-making forces currently operating in U.S. suburbs. This article addresses how these standards work to shape development decisions by various stakeholders in localities in Cook County, Illinois. Drawing on observations from several 2010 public architectural review commission hearings in nine different suburbs, I argue that design standards are forward-looking and ideology-based practices that are open to negotiation over the short run but ultimately end up shaping the “look” of the community over the long run. Implicit in such strategies is a reliance on an imputed agency of design in the built environment.

Date: 2015
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