Urban Environmental Law: Emergent Citizens' Rights for the Aesthetic, the Spiritual, and the Spacious

The issues in environmental law have been largely directed toward the natural environment, however, very recently and with growing force, new law has been channeled into the service of our nation's urban centers. Traditionally, urban environmental law included only broad schemes to redress urban ills, such as zoning laws, public housing programs, and urban renewal. In the past few years, there has been an increase in the development of personally held and asserted citizens rights to a quality urban environment. While articles on the urban environment often deal with statutory and administrative action, this article presents a different perspective, that of citizen enforcement and the judicial consequences of such a development.

Illustrative of the emergent role of courts in enforcing citizens' claims are the areas of historic preservation, noise regulation, and the use of environmental impact statements.