NEGOTIATING ACCESS TO PUBLIC SPACE IN MID-19TH-CENTURY TORONTO

Public space has been unwisely neglected by the student of the modern city. This paper argues that in nineteenth-century Canada it was a significant symbol valued by the whole population, and examines the process of negotiation by which contending interests in Toronto sought to secure their rights to its use and enjoyment. In the ongoing disputation over control and appropriate uses of the street, the most important public space during the middle decades of the nineteenth century, the social significance of public space and its geography are clarified.