The PATH to Union Station

During last week’s class trip to Union station, I witnessed an odd scene when I entered the underground pathway connected to Union Station near Front street and University Avenue. Near dead silence. A few people walked past the class, which I later learned was not surprising given the pathway was scarcely used by residents. Plans have been made in expanding the pathway so that more residents are encouraged to using it to better navigate around union station.

Admittedly, that was the first time I ever used the pathway. In fact, I never knew it existed up until the trip. What resonated with me wasn’t the emptiness of the pathway, but it was two adjacent walls at one part of the path. These two walls were designed to display some advertisements, but advertisers were not on board in providing advertisements for a pathway rarely used. As a result, those walls remained a blank canvass.

That seemingly unfinished part of the pathway reminded me of one argument that was discussed in last week’s urban policy class. There is growing expectations by residents for more and better city services despite that cities rarely control how these local services are delivered or funded.

However, Joe Berridge’s Perfect City: An Urban Fixer’s Global Search for Magic in the Modern Metropolis details a prevailing perspective in urban planning that I believe is relevant to this argument. Popularized by renowned writer and activist Jane Jacobs, this perspective would conceptualize the perfect city as harnessing its own organic power as a key source for its wealth and happiness. In her words, “lively, diverse, intense cities contain the seeds of their own regeneration, with energy enough to carry over for problems and needs outside themselves.”

Is Jacobs right? My earlier account of the underground pathway may not necessarily support her perspective. But assuming that she is right, would this mean that external factors, such as demographic and economic forces independent from the city, aren’t as important in facilitating improvements to service delivery and funding? Regardless of which is correct, this perspective extends the discussion on city service delivery and funding by posing questions about the capability of cities and comparing this with additional factors outside of cities.

Source: Berridge, Joe. Perfect City: An Urban Fixer’s Global Search for Magic in the Modern Metropolis. Sutherland House, 2019.