Redesigning Industrial Performance Standards

Abstract Industrial performance standards (IPSs) remain a curious area of land-use control. IPSs were first written in the 1950s to manage the externalities of “smokestack” industries in our central cities, but now performance standard zoning may no longer reflect the changes in our economy and society. Major industries (steel, for example) have declined or have been radically transformed, while entirely new forms of industrial capacity (the chemical, computer, and telecommunications industries) have arisen. Moreover, our new industries tend to locate away from the central cities to the urban periphery or to exurban sites.