IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rjouxx/v18y2025i3p419-438.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Infrastructural reuse projects, lost spaces, and spaces of homelessness: a case study on the Bentway in Toronto

Author

Listed:
  • P. Hess
  • C. Stevenson-Blythe

Abstract

This paper examines The Bentway, an infrastructural use project creating a new high-profile public space in Toronto, Ontario. Infrastructural reuse projects transform transportation corridors, former industrial waterfronts, and, in the case of The Bentway, land under an elevated expressway into park-like, but often heavily programmed, curated spaces managed by non-governmental organizations. Through a series of interviews and policy analyses, this paper examines tensions between publicness, accessibility, and gentrification that are inherent in these projects. The Bentway followed rather than precipitate an enormous wave of urban development. Still, conceptualizing the Bentway as taking place in “lost space” obscured its impact on a space associated with homelessness. Infrastructural reuse projects should be examined for not only the ways they foster gentrification, but for the ways they transform public space itself without anticipating how this can impact marginalized people that may have formerly used them.

Suggested Citation

  • P. Hess & C. Stevenson-Blythe, 2025. "Infrastructural reuse projects, lost spaces, and spaces of homelessness: a case study on the Bentway in Toronto," Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(3), pages 419-438, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rjouxx:v:18:y:2025:i:3:p:419-438
    DOI: 10.1080/17549175.2022.2138950
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17549175.2022.2138950
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/17549175.2022.2138950?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:rjouxx:v:18:y:2025:i:3:p:419-438. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/rjou20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.