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Moving through Toronto’s PATH: Assembling private urban governance

Author

Listed:
  • Debra Mackinnon

    (Lakehead University, Canada)

  • Stefan Treffers

    (York University, Canada)

  • Randy K Lippert

    (University of Windsor, Canada)

Abstract

This paper explores Toronto’s urban PATH, a 30 km network of underground pedestrian tunnels and elevated walkways that connect shopping areas, residential towers, mass transit and downtown destinations. Both as a case and heuristic, this paper situates Toronto’s PATH as an assemblage of private urban governance forms, exploring emergent and evolving constellations of power and responsibility for governing city space that defy easy distinctions of ‘public’ or ‘private’. As an urban assemblage, the PATH comprises potential and actual entities and associations, and is an accumulation of encounters. Never a stable or static entity, the PATH and its governance, we argue, is provisional, revealing constantly evolving connections, alignments and political-economic potentialities. We contend the PATH serves as a palimpsest of mutating governing relations; a multiplicity of meanings, visions and encounters etched into the built environment. By focusing on public and private vestiges, wayfinding, and visibility, and private verticalising ventures, we highlight how practices, logics, processes, urban actors and their histories collide to form fragile, provisional urban alignments and visions.

Suggested Citation

  • Debra Mackinnon & Stefan Treffers & Randy K Lippert, 2024. "Moving through Toronto’s PATH: Assembling private urban governance," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(14), pages 2795-2816, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:61:y:2024:i:14:p:2795-2816
    DOI: 10.1177/00420980241235371
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Neil Brenner & David J. Madden & David Wachsmuth, 2011. "Assemblage urbanism and the challenges of critical urban theory," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 225-240, April.
    2. Anna Charisse Farr & Tristan Kleinschmidt & Prasad Yarlagadda & Kerrie Mengersen, 2012. "Wayfinding: A simple concept, a complex process," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(6), pages 715-743, July.
    3. Colin McFarlane, 2011. "Assemblage and critical urbanism," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 204-224, April.
    4. Michele Acuto, 2011. "Putting ANTs into the mille-feuille," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(5), pages 552-562, October.
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    Cited by:

    1. Randy K Lippert & Debra Mackinnon & Stefan Treffers, 2024. "The new private urban governance: Vestiges, ventures and visibility," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(14), pages 2673-2685, November.

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