Legal Research

Short Day, Long Shadow

By Simon Fodden

Last year I let the Winter Solstice slip by unnoticed, only pointing back at it when the days were starting to stretch out. This year I thought I’d beat the rush and mark the shortest day a day early.

Fundamental as the law is in our society, it has little or nothing to say about the day the miserly sun stands still [solstice - mid-13c., from O.Fr. solstice, from L. solstitium "point at which the sun seems to stand still," from sol "sun" (see sol) + pp. stem of sistere "to come to a stop, make stand still"], an event that human beings, in the North, at least, have always regarded as profoundly important. So far as I know, no Canute-like ruler has ever issued a ukase, edict, or fiat commanding the day to expand more generously. And neither has a Western legislature proclaimed it a holiday.

In fact, the best I can do for a link between December 21 and law is to highlight, so to speak, the fact that the Winter Solstice represents a useful point in the business of urban development, being that day when a proposed development might shade its neighbours most unhappily. By-laws and building committees need to know how bad it could get, and things called shadow studies can tell them.

Last year I referred to a Barrie company that does these studies. This year I want to show you one. So here’s a time-lapse shadow study for the Winter Solstice in San Francisco. And to make you feel better, you can play the Summer Solstice study as well.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on December 20, 2010 (boomark / email).