Introduction

Abstract

The practice of public design review has grown rapidly in the past decade, and its growth has brought into question issues of the appropriateness and effectiveness of public participation in the determination of community aesthetics and individual building design. This issue of Environment and Behavior explores the idea of public participation in design decisions with six articles that were initially presented at the International Symposium on Design Review, sponsored by the University of Cincinnati in October, 1992. Four of the articles report on research and ideas pertaining to the public's evaluation of aesthetic quality, one sets the Issue in a context of planning paradigms and another is a case study of community participation in the creation of neighborhoods.