ABSTRACT

Possibly the most important function of the residential street is its role as community space. Yet an examination of space allocations in a typical residential area in Ottawa, Ontario, reveals the contradictions between planning regulations, jurisdictional liability and by-law, and the realities of how the streets are used. With a density of about seventyone houses per hectare, the amount of space between house frontages taken up by streets is approximately 42 per cent of the total cross-sectional area. Not surprisingly, the streets are a focus of intensive social interaction and play by the adults and children of this French/Italian neighbourhood. The greatest social activity is occurring on space officially designated in the by-laws for vehicles alone. People do not recognize these demarcations of space and ignore them where they interfere with their normal patterns of living.55 Planning by-laws give way to common usage because the streets are the best places to do many things for which other public spaces are less inappropriate.