Law and the Built Environment
Course Code:
HSP3015
This asynchronous seminar treats the built environment as a legal framework created, protected, and contested through law. Buildings, districts, and infrastructure sit inside overlapping systems of federal, state, and local authorities that define what can be altered, what must be preserved, and who gets a voice in decisions about urban change. Students survey the main legal and policy tools that shape the city, including preservation ordinances, zoning, aesthetic regulation and review, building and housing codes, environmental review, and commission powers. Topics such as housing justice, gentrification, sustainability, climate adaptation, and community advocacy appear through court cases and current debates. By the end of the term, students can read a street, block, or project as a legal construct, and understand how urban design, preservation, and planning practice operates inside the legal framework.
Interested in a certificate program? This course is part of the following certificates: