Citizens contribute to land use, public architecture and resource decisions by participating in standing review boards, ad hoc panels, the development of prescriptive design guidelines, and public comment periods. More and more the trend has been towards large governmental units, such as the state, forming land use guidelines to ensure similar and compatible planning efforts. Local planning decisions are then made at the municipal level and coordinated at the county level. Such decisions need to involve representative public process and incentives to all parties to participate. This is a guided interactive process that brings forth value-based ideas about what a community wants to be.
People search for common values and negotiate a list of community goals.
These invite neighborhood input into new development. In some instances, such as historical districts, the guidelines are very prescriptive. Others establish performance standards by which developers, architects, and neighborhood interests can negotiate design issues from a common set of criteria. The goal of all this work is the achievement of general agreement about the values and goals of a particular society. But to be effective, the words and ideas have to be translated into visual images and design concepts that incorporate those ideas, and then into public policy and capital improvement budgets that can actualize them.