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IV
Preamble to 
case studies
PA R T
PREAMBLE TO CASE STUDIES
Design professionals in Britain will recognize most, if
not all the design and planning concepts contained in
these American case studies, and this commonality
highlights a paradox of working within the two dif-
ferent cultures. The design concepts are nearly identi-
cal, but the political systems within which American
and British professionals work vary considerably.
We saw in Chapter 5 some of the important and
substantial differences between American zoning
techniques of ‘growth management’ and English pro-
cedures of ‘development control.’ British readers will
thus notice important differences in the implementa-
tion strategies and tactics of these American plans.
All these projects have been initiated by American
local governments, which work within the system
described in Chapter 5 that separates planning for
the future from development control in the present.
With frustrating frequency, the plans produced by
American towns and cities are simply regarded as
‘vision documents’ or ‘road maps’ to guide future
decisions, without any regulatory teeth. There are
plenty of good ideas and good intentions, but no
requirement that private development proposals and
public decisions follow the approved plans. As with
any road map, the plan is subservient to the driver,
who is free to change destination or direction at any
time. In Britain, by contrast, government policy
requires that all decisions on development must fol-
low the provisions of the appropriate publicly
adopted plan with only very limited exceptions.
The following case studies differ from much
conventional American practice, because they try
to bridge the problematic divide between plan-
ning and zoning. As we discussed in Chapter 6,
detailed, design-based zoning codes for these pro-
jects are almost always included in our planning
and design process, irrespective of scale, and these
zoning ordinances are prepared as part of the master-
planning package to give the plan legal weight. This
is important because in American law the design
plans themselves lack legal authority, other than ful-
filling a statutory requirement to have a community 
plan on file as the benchmark for other regulatory
instruments.
Integrating design-based zoning regulations with
the master plan that’s developed and approved in the
full light of public debate and scrutiny means that
these changes to local zoning laws can be adopted
when the plan is approved, or very shortly thereafter.
This goes a long way toward healing the American
breach between planning and zoning; under this sys-
tem, the community’s development plan that estab-
lishes the future vision is directly linked with the
zoning ordinance that regulates the build-out of
the plan over time. However, there is still no legal
requirement for American elected officials to follow
the plan and zoning they’ve so carefully constructed.
On an 
ad hoc
basis, governments can rezone parcels
of land against the provisions of their plans at any
time in the future if a developer or other interest
group can persuade them to do so. This lack of civic
backbone brings the plans into public disrepute, but
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in only a couple of our projects has this unfortunate
circumstance occurred. We include one example in
the case studies where firmer action was needed to
reinforce the importance of maintaining the integrity
of adopted community plans in the face of develop-
ment pressure and bureaucratic inertia.
One of the most compelling attributes of the
Charter of the New Urbanism is its common commit-
ment to good urban design and planning at a wide
variety of different scales, from the region to an indi-
vidual urban block. Accordingly, we have organized
our own work to reflect this hierarchy and commonal-
ity. Like many designers, we believe passionately that
what we plan should relate to the physical qualities of
the particular place, be it an area of 60 square miles
covering several political jurisdictions or a single town
center site of 10 acres. We want our work to stand as a
critical practice, countering the throwaway attitudes
of American culture – making haste and making
waste. Our work tries to re-imbue our sites, whether
they be cities or suburbs, with a sense of history, to
create memories for the future where none existed.
Each case study begins with a project description
and identification of the key issues and goals. This is
followed by a brief summary of the particular char-
rette process and the explanation of the full master
plan, replete with its recommendations and illustra-
tive drawings. Our intent is to demonstrate the level
of design detail that can be achieved in charrettes, and
in consequence, the sophisticated level of planning
attainable with this process. Nearly all the drawings
illustrated were produced during the charrette; they
have 
not
been touched up or redrawn for publication.
(Where graphics were produced or modified after the
charrette, usually for the project report, we have noted
these accordingly.) Unless otherwise noted on the
plans, north is orientated to the top of the page.
Each master plan is complemented by various
strategies for implementation and development con-
trol. In larger projects, these usually take the form
of development and design guidelines and zoning
recommendations; smaller scale projects typically
include studies of economic viability, an evaluation
of public funding strategies, project timetables, and
of course design-based zoning codes keyed to the
master plan. Finally, we present a short, critical evalu-
ation of the case study, highlighting its successes and
disappointments. All five case studies have been nec-
essarily abridged from their full complexity concern-
ing fine scale project locations and details in order to
render them accessible to the general reader.
One final point of clarification: up to this point we
have used the personal pronoun ‘we’ to indicate the
two authors. Henceforth, in all the case studies with
the exception of Chapter 11, ‘we’ means the design
team of the Lawrence Group, architects, and town
planners, who carried out this work for the relevant
public authorities. Accordingly, the ‘voice’ and style
of writing changes slightly as we move inside our
urban design practice and retell some stories of com-
munity planning by design. Describing these case
studies involves recapitulating past events, describing
things and places that exist, recounting values and
beliefs held in the present, and projecting implemen-
tation into the future. This shifting between tenses
can be confusing to the reader, and so we have nego-
tiated this obstacle using the simple criterion of what
sounds clearest rather than absolute academic consis-
tency. We trust our colleagues will forgive us this
vernacular preference.
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