Spatial Dimention of Law: How Law Shapes our Communities, #6

Spatial Dimensial of Law

The city is the largest human-made physical artifact. However, how is its form to be explained? Is it randomly emerging as the result of thousands of independednt decisionos? or is it based on the creative whims of the designer elite as they strive to mark the world with their monuments? Or it it a cultural response to the local climatic and geographical circumstances?This issue explores the role of law and regulation as the guiding factor in the emergent physical form of the built environment. A handful of these rules are critically analyzed. How they shape the urban form both purposively and unintentionally are being considered in this issue. Far from a unilateral imposition of power, the relationship between law and design is bilateral, with both components exerting influence on the other. For example, the common law principle of the right to ligh was explicitly excluded at the provincial level in Alberta. However, in Calgary, bylaws and community-specific plans create distinct rights to sunlight not found everywhere. In a residential context, the right to sunlight is used to contest a neighbor's aditions or increase in density. This and other aspects are discussed by analyzing specific examples in Calgary.