Community Character: Principles for Design and Planning

The book Kendig has written is a comprehensive treatment of community character and how and why this should be a primary consideration when zoning and regulating urban and rural areas. Kendig states that “community character presents a tested theory of planning based on visual and physical character that offers practical tools to measure and plan communities”.

The strength of this book is that it provides tools to measure or analyze design issues. It also differs from the existing books on the topic because it takes a more flexible approach to regulating design. Smart Code has been very popular because it provides specifies on rezoning (or doing overlay zoning) for livability, but it is very rigid. LEED Neighborhood Development is still in its infancy (pilot projects) and is also prescriptive (and flawed).

Lane Kendig is the founder and former president of Kendig Keast Collaborative, a planning consulting firm with offices in Chicago, Houston, Wisconsin, and Colorado. He has been practicing and writing about the relationship between community design planning and regulatory tools for more than forty years. He is the author of Performance Zoning and Too Big, Boring, or Ugly, Traffic Sheds, Performance Standards for Non-Residential Uses and numerous articles.