Local distinctiveness is what makes all our towns, villages and neighbourhoods so wonderfully different and special; mainly but not only in terms of what they look like. That distinctiveness has been threatened for years by the relentless roll-out of ‘anywhere’ new housing from developers.
By far the best way to prevent this ‘anywhereism’ is for communities to describe and celebrate their area’s distinctiveness. And, for planners to use such analyses to challenge the developers and their designers to do better and to add to, enhance and enrich local distinctiveness.
To read far more about this, with a bit of history and some practical pointers to a positive way forward, download our colleague Jeff Bishop’s fascinating paper “Local Distinctiveness in Planning and Design”.