10.1177/0013916504269667ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR / July 2005BOOK REVI W BOOK REVIEW Assessing Contemporary Design PSYCHOLOGY AND THE AESTHETICS OF THE BUILT ENVIRON-

Fifty years ago, U.S. courts and state legislatures began permitting aesthetic regu-lation, which refers to government efforts to enforce design quality in private develop-ment, based on the power of local governments to establish and enforce laws that pro-mote the public welfare. Yet legal thinkers and architects have charged that design re-view is plagued with several intrinsic problems, including preference for lay opinion rather than architectural expertise, lack of artistic freedom, unfairness, and arbitrary definitions of good design (Scheer, 1994). Moreover, recent Supreme Court rulings have placed strict requirements on local governments to justify the public purpose and extent of their land-use regulations, including design review. In Psychology and the Aesthetics of the Built Environment, Arthur E. Stamps III recognizes the limitations of current design review processes but disagrees that the entire enterprise is inherently flawed. Instead, he suggests different methods of accomplishing the same task that are more clear, fair, efficient, and effective. Stamps attempts to refute what people have accepted as common sense about de-sign review, including that (a) aesthetics is subjective, (b) experts and the general pub